Title: Captain Nicholas (1934)
Author: Hugh Walpole
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CAPTAIN NICHOLAS

A Modern Comedy

by

Hugh Walpole

1934

FOR

ROSE and OWEN TURVILLE

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!

Lewis Carroll

The lines quoted in the text from Mr. Arthur Waley's 170
Chinese Poems are reprinted by permission of the author and
his publishers, Messrs. Constable & Co., Ltd.

THE SPRING EVENING

'What a beautiful evening!' Fanny Carlisle said to the little
lady who was standing beside her.

It was one of her impetuous moments and, as was always the
case, she instantly regretted her impetuosity. How odd the lady
must think her, speaking to her thus in the middle of Bordon's,
without any reason at all!

And yet she did not appear to mind.

'Yes, is it not?' she said, looking up and smiling. 'So early
in April, and so warm.'

The room where the glass was had a beautifully remote air, and
from the large window the late afternoon sun streamed in upon the
glass, transmuting it, transforming the ruby and orange and blue
into glittering, trembling flames of colour. The tall glasses,
the round bowls, the tumblers twinkled, shone and sparkled. They
almost, if you were very romantic, appeared themselves to glory
in the sun, which, perhaps, did not too often caress them. It was
clever of Mr. Bordon to place the glass near the window and leave
the rest of the room to the china. He had known that there would
be these sunny days; he had even, Fanny Carlisle considered,
arranged the large thin vases and the faint blue bowls on the
highest points of vantage, for their hunger for light must be
passionate. . . .

'It must be lovely for them--a sunny day,' she said.

But the little lady could not follow her so far.

'It's too tiresome. My maid broke a blue bowl yesterday that
my husband gave me five Christmases ago. I was greatly attached
to it. My husband's away, you know, in Scotland, and I want to
replace it before he returns. In fact I must replace it.
He notices things. I felt sure that Bordon would have one
like it. The man's gone to enquire, but I could see from his
face--' She broke off to look again at the blue bowls. Poor
things! They had been so happy in the sun and now they were
worthless, valueless, might all be smashed into atoms and the
little lady would not care.

'I was so certain that Bordon . . .' she murmured.

'What about this one?' Fanny asked, pointing to a pale blue
bowl so thin and delicate that a breath would blow it like a
bubble into the sky.

'Oh no!' said the little lady, quite crossly. 'That isn't in
the least like it,' and she looked at Fanny Carlisle as though it
was most stupid of her not to have known.

'She's irritated by my height,' Fanny thought. This often
occurred to her when she was with strangers. She was tall and
broad, felt herself to be clumsier than she really was, and this
was because so often in her childhood she had heard the words:
'Now, Fanny, do be careful! You'll knock that chair over!'
or 'Fanny--mind the table. Look where you are going!'

But the little lady was pleased with what she saw. She liked
this tall straight woman with the dark hair and the kindly
humorous face. She was not smart, but most certainly a lady--not
one of these modern know-all women who gave themselves airs and
thought they knew everything, although Heaven alone could tell
whence they came--for the little lady was something of a snob and
as sensitive on occasion about her small stature as Fanny was of
her height.

'He's a long time,' she complained. 'And I know it's all no
use. It's so very irritating when they go off saying, "I'll see
what we can do, Madam," when you know that they know that
there's nothing to be done at all.'

'Well, I don't think that I can wait,' Fanny said cheerfully.
'I promised to be back by five and it's half-past four now. My
boy's at Westminster and he likes me to be there at
tea-time.'

'Oh, you have a boy at Westminster, have you? My husband's
brother went to Westminster. How small the world is!'

'Yes, we're a large family,' Fanny said, smiling, impetuous
again. 'There are eight of us altogether!'

'Eight!' said the little lady. 'Dear me! In these days! That
does seem a lot!'

'Yes--there's my mother-in-law, my husband, my sister, my
brother, and I have two boys and a girl.'

'And you all live together, always?'

'Yes, we're a very attached family. At least I suppose we are.
We all get along very well together.'

'That's not at all the modern idea.'

'No. I suppose it isn't. But I think we'd all be very sorry if
the family was broken up. I always think it so odd in the
newspapers and novels when they say that family life doesn't
exist any more. But of course they have to write about
something.'

But the little lady shook her head. 'Your case is very
exceptional,' she said. 'All living together, I mean. Of course
relations visit one another and so on, but staying in the same
house . . .! Don't you quarrel frightfully?'

Fanny laughed, shaking her head.

'No. Why should we? Of course we don't always agree, but that
makes things more interesting.'

'Well, I should be afraid if I were you. It's too good to
last.'

'Oh, I don't think so,' said Fanny. 'Nothing is.'

This again she at once regretted, for it was platitudinous
and, as her family often told her, the platitude was her danger.
Only why, when a thing was true, was it silly to mention it? This
would lead her too far, so she said:

'Those orange bowls are charming. With spring flowers they
would be delightful.'

'But it isn't an orange bowl that I want,' said the little
lady. 'And I've been here half an hour. And I'm keeping you too.
What a shame! Really, in these big stores you'd think they--'

'Oh, it doesn't matter,' said Fanny. 'It wasn't important.
Only some quite ordinary tumblers. I can get them anywhere.'

At this moment the assistant, holding a blue bowl in each
hand, appeared. He was a very thin man with a small pale
yellow moustache, but his manner was so confident and superior
that Fanny could not feel sorry for him.

'I think I've found the very thing, Madam,' he said
triumphantly.

'Indeed, you have not!' said the little lady. 'Neither of
those is the least like it.'

'I'm very sorry, Madam,' he remarked with polite indifference,
as though he said: "I have excellent manners, but if you dropped
dead at my feet this very moment I shouldn't much care." 'Perhaps
we can get you--if Madam isn't in a hurry--'

'Of course I'm in a hurry,' the little lady, almost in tears,
replied. 'And now I don't know what I shall do. It's too
provoking. I thought Bordon's had everything. . . .'

'I'm extremely sorry, Madam,' said the assistant, pulling his
primrose moustache. 'Of course this blue bowl is very charming.
We--'

But the little lady had gone, exactly as though the floor had
swallowed her or the sun absorbed her into its splendour.

He went to wrap them up, still with his air of pleasant
disdain which only his shoes, a little worn and wrinkled, belied.
While he was gone Fanny looked again at the glass.

The sun now struck the room with its full power. The air
sparkled and was shot with the trembling colour of the
glass--pale as green sea-water, rosy as evening cloud, frosty
with the shimmer of ice on the window-pane, clear with the silver
whiteness of crystal, these lovely things quietly surrendered to
the evening. One tall vase of a blue as faint as a young hyacinth
seemed to be part of the sun, to be withdrawn into outer air and
lose itself in the evening sky.

'There's a smell of lilac,' Fanny thought. 'White lilac would
look lovely in that vase.'

Safely outside she climbed on to the upper part of an omnibus.
Gazing through the window at her side, she marvelled that the
world could be so beautiful. It was one of those hours when by a
trick of light and sun London appears to be surely the queen of
the world. She is not, of course, and we all know how, at the
bidding of a tiny cloud, she can sink into primeval slime, but
this afternoon she thought that she would let herself go. Through
the window Fanny saw the spring evening at liberty. Carried
through a rosy air everything below her was unsubstantial, veiled
in a mist that was primrose-coloured, and then deep in violet
shadow--mists and shadows that seized messenger-boys and ladies
shopping and butchers at their reeking doors and antique shops
with here a Persian rug and there a bowl of crimson, and
newspaper placards, murderous and sporting--all these things were
as whimsical as a play by a Scotsman or a children's poem by a
member of the Athenaeum. Somewhere around the chimneys the
shadows failed and above them the sky was as pale as the feathers
of young canaries. Was it blue or white like a sea-shell?

'If you wouldn't mind,' said the lady in the seat with her.
'You are sitting on my coat.'

Fanny was never comfortable on the outside of one of those
seats that are ironically designed for the sensitive egotism of
ordinary-sized persons. Fanny was too large and she could not see
from the window as she would, so that it was delightful when the
lady (who held herself stiffly as though Fanny had the plague or
the chicken-pox at least) departed and allowed her to command the
scene. And command it she did! For now she could see all the
humours of the street as though they were directed by her. She
had only to move a finger and that lady with the parcels stayed
where she was, imprisoned in the sunny haze, or the stout man
trying to hail a taxi (he had a flower in his button-hole)
remained for ever hailing, an eternal figure in a master's
landscape. And now they were in Piccadilly Circus where Eros,
temporarily restored, caught the sunlight in his wings, and below
the ground people dropped pennies into machines and slid down
mechanical stairways. Here there was a hush. Everything moved
softly and the sky was exposed, a whole square piece of it, lit
into infinity with one star quietly inquisitive. Then they went
down the hill, saw people already on chairs outside His Majesty's
Theatre, looked at the Trafalgar Square lions, considered the
pictures separated from the spray of the fountains by that grimy
wall of stone, down the hill again into a world of bells and
legislators, of policemen and trees and hidden streets and small
boys wearing top-hats. . . .

Into Fanny's world, for she lived with her family in Smith
Square.

'I'm sure I smell lilac somewhere,' she said as she climbed
down from her omnibus.

The face of the house where she, her sister, her two brothers,
her three children had all been born, always delighted her with
every fresh vision of it. It was a tall thin house, the stone
pearl-coloured, the windows high and rather narrow, the
chimney-pots a little twisted, four white steps to the door, and
above the door a stone tea-pot that had been carved there when
the house began its history somewhere about 1710. In a changing
world--'and what a changing world!' thought Fanny--the
beautiful pale colours, the dignity and quietness of this house
meant something. And then when you considered all the life that
had flourished inside it--the brocades and patches, the
sedan-chairs that had waited outside the door, the tea-pot
serenely watching them, and, later, the crinolines, the wickedly
narrow waists, the young men with whiskers, the beards, the
barrel-organs, the screens covered with pictures from the
Illustrateds, the births, the deaths, the quarrels and
reconciliations--'and now!' thought Fanny. But at that she could
wait no longer, but must, at once, let herself in with her key to
see whether Edward was hungry for his tea, what Nell had done
about the Frobishers, and whether Romney had sold the French
picture to the rich American (now becoming in London so rare a
bird!) as this morning he had hoped to do.

Then, inside the hall, these surmises were as though they had
never been, for Janet was coming down the stairs and, at sight of
her mistress, stopped dead and, in that husky
would-be-indifferent whisper that was so especially hers, said:
'Oh, what do you think? The Captain is here!'

Janet, who had been present when Fanny was brought into the
world, whose whole life had been spent in one long determination
never in any circumstances to allow a thought of emotion,
pleasure, pain or interest to colour her words, was on this
occasion defeated. For her voice trembled as she spoke and into
her grey eyes there came that shadow of anxiety, of tenderness
even, for her mistress, child and friend.

'The Captain! . . . Nicholas!' and Fanny stayed where she was,
almost dropping the parcel that held the tumblers.

'Yes. He's in the drawing-room. And with his little girl.
Them's his boxes.'

She came down the stairs and stood beside Fanny, her tall
gaunt figure drawn stiffly up as though she would defy the
world.

They continued to whisper.

'But he never sent a line. He hasn't written for ten
years.'

'He's here, waiting for you, with his little girl!'

'He's come to stay?'

'It looks like it.'

'Is no one there?'

'No. Mr. Matthew's out walking and Miss Grace is in her room
and--'

But Fanny waited for no more. Thrusting the tumblers into
Janet's hand she hurried upstairs, threw open the drawing-room
door. There, in front of the fire, his legs extended, perfectly
at home, waited her brother Captain Nicholas Coventry. Beside him
a little girl in a rather shabby black frock was standing.

'Oh, Nicholas!' Fanny cried, and she rushed at him, almost
knocking over a small table, threw her arms round him and kissed
him as though she would never let him go.

'Well, Fanny!' he cried, when he was at last released. 'This
is fine! This is splendid!'

She was near to tears, her cheeks were flushed, her hair
tumbled with the embrace.

'Nicholas! . . . And without a word! And after all this time!
Oh, dear--but I was never so surprised in my life! Why didn't you
write? Why didn't you telegraph? What does this mean? Have you
come to stay?'

'Yes--Lizzie and I have come to stay if you will have us.'

'Have you? Why, of course we will! And this is Lizzie! Why,
she was scarcely born when I saw her last. You remember--that
Christmas at Caroline's!' and she embraced the little girl, who
was thin and pale and had large, round, dark eyes.

The Captain laughed, and his laugh was one of the jolliest in
the world. He was a handsome man with as slight a figure now at
forty-four as he had had at twenty, short, cropped grey hair, a
little curly, a fresh rosy complexion, a short tooth-brush
moustache, and clothes that, if a little worn, fitted him quite
perfectly. He was smart, he was neat, and he had small blue eyes.
He patted her shoulder.

'Dear Fanny--this is a welcome. I didn't know how you'd
take it. I said to Lizzie--"We'll leave our boxes in the hall,
for they may not want us--it may not be convenient."'

'Want you! Convenient!' cried Fanny. 'Why, it's the most
wonderful thing! But where have you been? Where have you come
from? I haven't had a line for ten years, you know--'

'I know. I wonder I had the cheek to turn up at all. I said to
Lizzie: "If they do take us in it will be the most marvellous
charity, because nobody has behaved worse than I have. It's
only," I told Lizzie, ''because your Aunt Fanny is the
best-natured, kindest, creature in the world that I've any hope."
. . . We've come from Italy, from San Remo.'

'From San Remo? Oh, but you must be famished!' She rushed
across the room and rang a bell. She turned back towards them,
her eyes shining, her hands outstretched.

'But it's wonderful to see you, Nick. And not a bit altered,
just the same. A little greyer perhaps . . .!'

'But you'll want to wash. And they must take up your bags. Let
me see! The Brown spare-room. That'll be the thing. It gets the
sun. I'll tell them to light a fire. And you'll like Lizzie near
you. There's a small bedroom quite close that Edward used to
have--'

'Bother about you! Of course I'll bother about you.' She then
realized that Lizzie had not spoken a word, but continued to
regard her with steady, unblinking eyes.

'You poor little thing!' She went up to her and kissed her.
The child's cheek was very cold. 'You must be worn out and
ravenous.'

Rose the parlourmaid came in. Instructions were given. Fanny
led the two travellers upstairs, into the Brown room (which
wasn't brown at all, but had a wall-paper with robins), and then
Lizzie was shown the small room, and the boxes were brought in
and the fires were lit.

After all this Fanny said:

'And now I'll leave you. Come straight down to the
drawing-room as soon as you've washed. The others will be all
there in a moment. They'll be so excited!'

She went up to Nicholas and kissed him again. 'Dear Nicholas!
I hope you're going to stay for ever so long. You owe it us, you
know, after the way you've behaved.'

He patted her cheek.

'As long as you'll have us, Fanny dear.'

As soon as she had left him she hurried up to the schoolroom
to see that Edward had his tea. Here, in this room with its
picture-covered screens, its shelves with the old books, a worn
rocking-horse without a tail, the children had lived, and now
that Nell and Romney had grown up it remained with Edward as its
only master. He regarded it now as entirely his, loved it with a
passion and resented intensely if anyone tried to alter even the
smallest detail in it. Here he had his tea, his boiled egg, his
toast and his jam. Here he pursued his own secret and mysterious
life, and here he insisted that his mother should watch him cut
the top off his egg.

He was waiting for her now, his school-books piled on the
table, his top-hat thrown on to a chair, and his bright bird-like
eyes watching the door. His features were plain, his complexion
sallow and his mouth large, but he was not unattractive, for he
had energy, he had curiosity, and he was able to run his life
(which seemed to him an extraordinary, adventurous and most
unusual life) by himself.

'I thought you weren't coming,' he said to her gravely.

'I'm sorry, darling.' She sat down beside him and poured out
his tea. 'But what do you think has happened? Your Uncle
Nicholas has come with his little girl.'

'Uncle Nicholas?' he said with his eyes on the jam (he had
expected for some reason that it would be apricot, and very
disappointingly it was plum). 'That's the wicked one, isn't
it?'

'Wicked! No, darling. Wherever did you get such an idea
from?'

'I heard father call him a ne'er-do-well once and I asked Mr.
Foster what a ne'er-do-well was and he said someone who wasn't
any good.'

'Oh, that only means' (she watched him while he cut off the
top of his egg, an operation that he performed with the most
perfect dexterity) 'someone who moves about. Ever since your
uncle left the Army he's been moving about. You see, after his
wife died he felt lonely--and then he hasn't very much money. And
he has a little girl to support.'

'A little girl?' asked Edward. 'What's her name?'

'Lizzie.'

'Lizzie. Well, I don't think much of that for a name. Mother,
all my algebra was right this morning. Paunchy seemed quite
pleased for once, and, mother, can Bond Minor come to tea on
Saturday? He's not a bad sort if you know him and he's been very
decent about hockey. You see--'

And he entered into a long history. While he talked her mind
wandered. As a rule every detail of Edward's day (of Nell's and
Romney's also) was absorbing to her. But now the consciousness
that Nicholas was in the house, that he was, at this very moment,
washing his hands on the floor below, that he had arrived and
intended to remain--this great surprise drove for the moment even
the family from her mind. She had always been a little shy of
Nicholas, shy of him and adoring him both at the same time. He
had been (and was still, no doubt) by far the cleverest of the
family. It had seemed always that there was nothing he could not
do if he cared to do it. That he had not cared had been
astonishing to her. When, at the outbreak of war he had at once
joined up, that was part of his general courage and enterprise,
but when, at the end of it, he had remained in the Army she had
been sorry. The Army was not the place for his gifts. He read, he
painted charming pictures, he was most modern in all his views.
He has always been ahead of the others in his attitude to
life--bold, audacious, Fanny often thought him. He had so much
charm that people fell down before him like ninepins, and yet
with all this, with his charm, his looks, his brains, he had
not--as Fanny was compelled to admit--done very much with his
life. What indeed he had done in the last ten years she
did not know. He had married towards the end of the War Essie
Lawrence, an odd, quiet, reserved little thing, and when Lizzie
was a year old Essie had died of pneumonia in Paris. They had all
written letters of sympathy, but not a word had been received in
reply. The others had ceased to write: only Fanny had persisted,
sending long family letters twice or thrice a year to the address
of his bankers in Paris. He had never answered: she had expected
never to hear again, and now here he was, as alive and charming
and affectionate as he had ever been, here without a word,
without even a telegram!

But the very sight of him had made her happy. Poor
Nicholas--without a home, widowed so soon, with that sad, pale,
silent little girl. She sighed.

'. . . so I said, "Well, keep it yourself--I don't want your
silly old watch," and he said . . .'

'Yes, darling. Is your egg all right?'

'Top-hole.'

'I must go down now and give Uncle Nicholas some tea.'

Edward said nothing to that. When he was disappointed he said
nothing. His mother always stayed with him for at least half an
hour. He had lots more to tell her. So he said nothing and helped
himself to jam.

She went down to the drawing-room to find her mother-in-law
and her husband and the tea all waiting.

Mrs. Carlisle was seventy-three years of age and a spare, fine
old lady with white hair, a long nose and a small determined
mouth. When her son Charles had married Fanny Coventry she had
lamented his fate as though he had lost an arm or leg. But that
was quite natural, for so passionately did she love her son--her
only child--that no woman on earth could ever be good enough for
him. For twenty-three years she had maintained this attitude, and
neither Charles' married happiness nor Fanny's good-nature could
modify it. Her commiseration, however, had been enlarged by her
worship of Charles' children, who never, so perfect were they,
could have a mother worthy of them. Apart from this, she liked
Fanny. If Charles had to have a wife, and Romney, Nell and
Edward a mother, why, then Fanny was a good woman who did her
best, and it was not her fault, poor dear, that she was
placed in a situation altogether above her talents. That was old
Mrs. Carlisle's domestic attitude. She paid an annual sum towards
the upkeep of the house and, although what she paid was a great
deal less than what she received, this gave her a right to
interfere when she thought it proper--and she thought it proper
quite frequently.

The other thing about her was that until the last two years
she had 'enjoyed' perfect health. Enjoyed was not perhaps the
word because she had accepted this same health as her absolute
right and had scorned her fellow human-beings for their physical
weakness. When, therefore, last year a little rheumatism had
visited her legs, and her heart had begun once and again to
trouble her, she had been greatly surprised and indignant, rather
as though someone had been rude to her in the street or a man
pinched her leg in an omnibus.

As to Charles, he was a square-shouldered, jolly-faced man
with grey hair, a short sturdy body and amused, tolerant eyes. He
was, in fact, like five hundred and fifty thousand other men
except to his mother and wife, who thought him extraordinary, and
his children, who thought him an old dear.

He had been in the Stock Exchange all his life, like his
father before him, and had retired three years ago. In these
difficult times--it was the spring of 1932--his investments were
not so flourishing and he worried, sometimes, in the silence of
the night about the future. At the top of the house he had a
large room where he did wood-carving. Except for finance and one
secret he had no troubles. He loved his wife and his children.
His home was more to him than anything else in the world.

When Fanny came in she saw at once that they had not heard the
news.

'Charles! Mother! Nicholas has arrived!'

She saw at once that neither of them was very glad. The old
lady shut her mouth tightly and said not a word.

Charles said: 'Nicholas! But why?'

'Why?' said Fanny, exasperated as in her impetuosity she so
often was with Charles' slowness. 'Why? Because he's come to
stay--with his little girl.'

'Come to stay?' said Charles. 'For how long?'

'As long as he likes,' said Fanny, wishing for a moment, as so
many loving wives so often do, that she had married someone
different.

'Where's he come from?'

'From San Remo.'

'What's he been doing there?'

'Oh, I don't know. I've had no time to ask him anything. He's
upstairs washing his hands--'

'Well, I'm damned!' Charles planted his hands on his stout
knees. 'What do you say to that, mother?'

'What do I say?' The old lady tossed her head. 'It's
Fanny's house and it's Fanny's brother.'

Just here, fortunately, Matthew came in. Matthew Coventry, who
was forty-five, two years older than his sister Fanny and one
year older than Nicholas, was a little man, oddly short beside
his brother and two sisters, who were all tall. He was
scrupulously neat in a dark suit and a blue bow tie with white
spots. His round face was kindly and humorous and bore a striking
resemblance to Fanny's, although his colour was pale beside
Fanny's brilliance.

The trouble with Matthew was, as Mrs. Carlisle often pointed
out to her son, that he did nothing. He had been once,
years ago, a solicitor, but having some means of his own he had
put some of it into the upkeep of the Smith Square house and
taken up his abode there. He was perfectly happy. His most
striking characteristic, at first sight, was his tranquillity. He
brought with him, wherever he was, an air of rest and peace. Even
Mrs. Carlisle admitted this. 'I like Matthew about the house. He
quiets you down, and that's the stranger, Charles, because he's
undoubtedly mad.'

'No, not mad,' Charles would say, smiling. 'Religious.'

'Same thing,' said old Mrs. Carlisle, who was, I'm sorry to
admit, a complete pagan.

He came in very quietly now, and when Fanny said:
'Matthew--Nicholas has come,' he smiled and remarked:

'How nice! We haven't seen him for ages!'

He sat down, crossed his legs and smiled at the old lady, of
whom he was very fond. In her heart she liked him too, but now,
looking at him, she thought: 'Really, it's terrible of
Matthew--doing nothing with his life whatever and looking so
contented. His religion ought to tell him that it isn't right.'
And she never reflected for a single moment that her beloved
Charles also did nothing.

Matthew said: 'Where's he come from?'

'From San Remo,' said Fanny, pleased that someone had come in
who would be glad about Nicholas. 'And he's brought his little
girl.'

'Is he going to stay with us?'

'Of course.'

'That's good.'

At that moment Nicholas and his daughter Lizzie came in.
Nicholas had looked spruce enough when he had arrived, but now he
was as elegant, as slim, as straight-backed as an officer on
parade. Lizzie was in her same little black dress. She held her
father's hand and looked directly in front of her. Nicholas took
her up to the old Lady. 'Old Lady,' he said, 'this is my
beautiful daughter.'

He had always in the old days called her 'Old Lady' and for
some reason she liked it, although in general she hated to be
reminded of her age. She could not abide him, she despised him
utterly, but nevertheless she liked him to call her 'Old
Lady.'

She paid no attention to him but drew the little girl to
her.

'So you're little Lizzie, are you?'

'Yes,' said Lizzie.

'How old are you?'

'Twelve.'

'Dear me, what a terrible age! You poor little thing, you look
half starved. Nicholas, you haven't been looking after her.'

He laughed, taking them all in with his merry eye. 'Oh,
she looks after me! Didn't you know? . . . How are
you, Charles? Getting fat, aren't you? Hullo, Matthew! You
haven't changed a bit! By Jove, it's grand to be here!' He sat
down on the sofa, and Lizzie at once sat down beside him. 'I
don't suppose you any of you want me, but Lizzie and I couldn't
help it. We just had to come. Didn't we, Liz? And you can
turn us out as soon as you like.'

'Had to come!' snorted Mrs. Carlisle. 'When for ten
years you haven't been near us nor have you written to one of
us.'

He pulled up his trousers a little, gave his moustache a
pinch; his bright blue eyes seemed to sparkle in the
firelight.

'Oh, but I'm no good at all! You've always known that. I never
write to anyone--I've got no conscience about anything. Besides,
who cares to hear from me? What have I got to tell anyone that's
of the slightest interest? But I've thought of you often--and
talked about you. Haven't I, Lizzie?'

Fanny noticed that he was always appealing to his daughter but
never apparently expected an answer from her. He planted his
hands on his knees.

'Be nice to us for a day or two. We really need some kindness
shown us. And then we'll move on again.'

'I can't be good,' Nicholas answered. 'It isn't in my nature.
But I'll try to behave while I'm here.' Then he went on, looking
about him: 'Oh, it is nice to be here! Just the same
room--not altered a bit. How often in exile I've thought of the
Bonington and Wilson--you could get a pretty sum for them now,
you know--and the screen with the dragons, and the glass-topped
table with the seals and garnets and gold boxes. Thanks,
Matthew--I will have some of that cake--the plum one--and
plenty of it.'

The door opened again and Nell and Romney came in, so that all
the family were now in the room save Edward, who was doing
geography upstairs, and Aunt Grace.

Nell, who was twenty years of age, was very pretty, looking
like so many of her age, half a boy with her short hair and slim
figure. Her hair was fair and her face so youthful and so gentle
in expression that the slight artificiality of the eyebrows and
the carmined lips would have been mask-like and unreal had they
been at all exaggerated. She did not exaggerate but painted and
modelled just enough to be in line with her generation. She was
wearing a little dark blue hat.

Romney, who was twenty-two, had a figure as slim as his
sister's, but he was as dark as she was fair. He looked
distinguished and superior to the run of young men, which was
what he wanted to look, but in his heart he was afraid that he
was not superior to anybody. He was often unhappy because he felt
superior and inferior both at the same time. Life seemed to him
increasingly difficult, and then there was the awful question as
to whether there was any point in any of it. All his clever
friends thought that there was no point. He longed for affection
but assumed an attitude of cold heartless indifference--except to
his mother, whom he frankly and openly loved although he thought
her sometimes absurd and always behind the times. Once and again,
in the secrecy of his chamber, he wondered whether to be
altogether behind the times mustn't be rather comforting.

They were greatly surprised to see their Uncle Nicholas, whom
they remembered scarcely at all. But they showed no surprise
whatever and, after saying that they were glad to see him,
devoted themselves to their tea.

Soon they were all talking together and Fanny could sit
quietly by and watch them.

This was often the favourite hour of the day for her because,
unlike so many families, they enjoyed meeting once a day and
spending an hour in one another's company, removed from the rest
of humanity if possible. Of course the outside world did
come to tea at times, on occasion invited and on occasion because
it had nothing better to do. Mrs. Frobisher, for example, was one
of the latter kind. But, every week, there were days when no one
came and then they would sit, eat and drink, gossip, argue, and
enjoy their hour. In this as in many other things they were an
unusual family and especially in the love that bound them all
together. For though old Mrs. Carlisle might snort, Charles
argue, Nell and Romney mock, and although they were not at all
family-proud but regarded themselves as quite ordinary,
nevertheless they cared for one another as they cared for no one
outside.

Of course this couldn't last, Fanny often assured herself.
Nell would fall in love, Romney marry, someone surely one day
would attack their defences. How strong was this family bond?
Could they keep it? Yes, Fanny believed that they could. There
was some underlying fidelity, trust, devotion here that was
stronger than the world.

She had long ago been sure that this outside modern restless,
reckless world must be accepted and propitiated. She herself
neither understood it nor liked it. It was not her world,
but it was the world of Romney, Nell and Edward, so she
tried to read their books, understand their pictures, and
listened (often with alarm and a secret consciousness that all
her tastes--religious, moral, aesthetic--were affronted) to their
opinions on morality, marriage, art. She could not change these
things. Nothing that she could say would alter anything, only
because she loved them with all her heart she could show them
that she was behind them in whatever happened to them and would
love them whatever they did. Nevertheless Nell and Romney were
good. She was sure of that and, whatever they might say,
their ideas of honour and fidelity and courage were her own
ideas. She could trust them anywhere.

And now Nicholas had joined the family. As she looked at him,
laughing, joking, indulging to the full his famous charm, she
smiled. What an extraordinary man! For there he was as though he
had never been away, drawing them all in! He must be aware that
old Mrs. Carlisle and Charles disliked him, and didn't want
him--but did that matter to him? Not in the least! He was
confident, as he had always been, that he would succeed. And yet
he had not succeeded--with more talents than any of them he was
the failure. What, she suddenly wondered, was he living on? He
had had years ago his share of their father's money, but she knew
that also years ago he had spent it. He could not be earning
anything now unless he was selling his pictures. Perhaps he was.
. . . Perhaps over there in Italy he had become a famous
painter.

So she suddenly said:

'Nick--what about the painting? Probably you're a famous
painter now and we none of us know it.'

He had been joking with Nell. (It was plain that he greatly
admired her.) He turned, smiling, to Fanny.

'Oh, my dear, didn't you know? I've given it up long ago. I
wasn't good enough. It's no use in these days being a
second-rater. There are too many clever people about. Then this
modern painting, which is all I care about, is so easy to do
badly that if you admire it you simply daren't try.'

'I sold the Matisse to-day,' Romney broke in. 'I hooked the
old boy at last. It was exactly like landing a salmon. But we got
him. And at our price too. All the same, he didn't do so badly.
The price was stiff, but it was a good Matisse. A girl in
a lovely red hat and a white feather.'

'And what else?' asked Nell.

'Nothing at all except a silver garter. That was the trouble.
He was frightened of what his wife would say. He brought her in
finally and the joke was that she admired it immensely.'

'Well,' began Nick, 'I saw a Matisse the other day in
Paris--'

But he was interrupted. Grace Coventry came in, flustered as
usual. She was a large, stout, rosy woman, often smiling and
generally bewildered. As she came forward she said:

'Isn't that dreadful? I went fast asleep. I was reading such
an interesting book too! And now tea's over. Well, never
mind'--she smiled brightly on everyone--'I deserve it.'

'Nicholas!' Grace stood, confused, then she went rather
timidly to him and kissed him. 'Well, I never! I never
did! How perfectly lovely!'

'How are you, Grace?' Nicholas said. 'As blooming as ever, I
see. This is Lizzie. This is your Aunt Grace, Lizzie, whom I've
so often told you about. She'll take you into the kitchen and
give you jam and she'll bring you hot drinks at night, and if you
ever have a cold she'll sit up all night with you.'

Everyone laughed, and Grace tee-heed and laughed too and
suddenly kissed Nicholas again and sat down on the sofa and took
Lizzie's hand.

There had come in with her a large black cat. This cat was
known as Becky Sharp for many reasons. One was that it had most
brilliant and piercing green eyes, another that it was entirely
callous about its almost incredibly recurring offspring, another
that it was a cat always out for its own advantage and would
attach itself ruthlessly to anyone who had anything to offer.
Becky Sharp was one of Fanny's weaknesses. She knew all about its
hard and grasping character, but she loved it, partly because she
remembered the gay and enterprising kitten that it had once been.
And the cat did appear to have an affection for Fanny. It
followed her about the house, liked to settle on her lap, was
distressed, apparently, when she was away.

It advanced now and stood beside her, looking up. Fanny poured
its milk into a saucer.

'Yes, you know,' Grace was saying, smiling round upon everyone
and especially on Granny Carlisle, whom she always persisted in
regarding as a weak, delicate old lady who needed looking after
and protecting--'there I was. I went fast asleep, and it was at
one of the most interesting chapters in Warwick Deeping's
delightful book. I know you don't read novels, Nicholas. Let me
put your cup down. No, I insist. . . . Yes, and oh, Fanny' (here
she opened a large red bag which she always carried with her
everywhere), 'I forgot to tell you I bought the small hand-towels
and the other things this morning as I said I would, and they
were two pounds two shillings exactly--you gave me three pounds,
you remember. Here is the change.'

'Oh, don't bother just now, dear.'

'No, but I must. Or I shall certainly spend it myself.'

She laid the little pile of silver on a small table, looked at
it with satisfaction, then said:

'Shall I get your sewing, Granny?' (She always called Mrs.
Carlisle 'Granny' because the children did.) 'Or would you like
your book?'

Grace looked round to see what else she could do for anybody,
and finding nothing she concentrated again upon Nicholas.

'But where have you been all this time, Nicholas? Where
have you been? And never writing to one of us. Too bad.
But there, I expect you've been so terribly busy. One's always so
busy abroad. Thank you, dear.' (For she had dropped her bag,
which Nell picked up for her.) 'And dear little Lizzie. We'll
have to see what we can do to make her happy while she's here,
won't we, Fanny? You shall come for walks with me and there are
lots of books in the schoolroom that I'm sure you haven't read.
What do you like best to amuse yourself with, darling?'

Everyone waited for the answer, for until now the child had
been quite silent. Only her father looked at her with ironical
confidence.

'Thank you very much,' said Lizzie. 'I think I like watching
people best.'

'You see,' Nicholas explained, 'she's always with me and I
keep such very odd company that she has a good deal to
watch altogether, don't you, Lizzie?'

'And where's she been to school?' asked Grace.

'She's never been to school.'

'Never been to--! Never to school!' Grace raised her soft
hands, which were small and beautiful. 'Oh, but, Nicholas! What
have you been about?'

'I don't believe in schools. I never learnt anything at mine.
Lizzie can read, write and speak Italian, German and French, and
she knows more about human nature than I do--so her education's
all right.'

Grace was about to exclaim again, but Charles interrupted in
his slow way. (This was the family fashion, so long acquired that
it was now like second nature, of checking Grace.)

'It has been one of the grandest days I've ever seen. I walked
through the Park to Marble Arch. I never saw such colours!'

Fanny looked at him with a little anxiety. There had been
something the matter with Charles during the last week. He was
not happy about something. He was worried, she was sure. But she
said nothing. Only her eyes met his and they both smiled.

The little gold clock on the mantelpiece struck six and there
was a general movement. A family that is much together forms
habits, and one of the habits here was that at six o'clock the
family session was over and everyone went about his or her own
business.

Charles got up, yawned, stretched himself.

'Yes,' he said. 'One of the loveliest evenings I've ever seen.
Spring. You could smell flowers everywhere. Now, Nick, make
yourself at home. We dine at seven forty-five. Glad you've come.'
He put his hand for a moment on Nicholas' shoulder.

'Already,' Fanny thought happily, 'he doesn't dislike him as
much as he did.' She went off to see how Edward was getting
on.

They all went their several ways. Soon the large room, with
its pleasant glow from the lamps and fire, its silver-shining
tea-things, the large white bowl with early spring flowers, the
old warmly coloured pictures, the bookcases and the deep-red
lacquer screen, had only Nicholas and Lizzie for its
occupants.

'Well, Liz,' he remarked. 'I don't think we shall do so badly
here for a bit. What do you think?'

'I like the old lady best,' she said. 'I don't like the one
with the red bag at all.' Her words had a slight touch of
foreign accent.

She waited quietly for her father's next move.

She did not seem in the least astonished at it when it came.
Nicholas looked, with a light glance, about the room, then with a
little quick gesture swept the pile of silver that Grace had
placed on the small table into his pocket.

On the afternoon following Nicholas Coventry's arrival Charles
Carlisle set out to say good-bye to a lady.

He was not accustomed to such farewells. He had tumbled into
his father's business like a happy little duck into halcyon
water. He was young enough when he fell in love with Fanny
Coventry to be idealistic; he was still in love and
idealistic. He adored his children and thought there were none
like them anywhere. He considered the Smith Square house perfect,
his club--the Atlas--the best in London, golf a wonderful game,
and fooling about with a hammer and some nails and a piece of
wood the most perfect of tranquil amusements. His health was
excellent. But he was not such a fool as this sounds. His nature
was cheerful and gay, but his heart was tender and he had
imagination. He also had common sense.

He had no very great opinion of himself, and it was one of his
weaknesses that he was easily convinced of the great merits of
his friends, but he had courage, he could be obstinate and, if
need be, almost fanatically loyal.

He knew quite well that the major part of his happiness came
from his wife. He loved and admired her with a devotion that had
in it patience, courtesy, honour and humour--the four great
qualities for any husband who wishes to pay marriage the
compliment that it deserves. Like any other man he admired a
pretty woman, and his thoughts were not always in his control,
but, with the exception of his wife and daughter, he preferred
like most normal men the day-by-day company of men.

He had known no worry that deserved that name, since Fanny's
difficult delivery of Edward, until the last two years, when
money suddenly began to behave eccentrically and the world in
general to turn towards madness.

But Romney was in a good business now, his family had no
extravagant tastes; he could always, he was sure, find enough for
them. Into this tranquillity, on January the Third of this
present year, there had fallen the most astounding and troubling
episode of his life. Its origin had been simple. On that evening
Fanny was in bed with a cold and he had gone alone to the
theatre, a thing that he did sometimes, for he did not resent his
own company and found that, when he was by himself, he noticed
many interesting things that a friend's presence obscured. He had
taken a seat in the dress-circle and, at the first interval,
thought that he would buy himself a drink. There was the usual
impatient multitude fighting at the usual inadequate bar. He
turned aside and saw a girl by herself, leaning against the wall
in the corridor. At the first sight of her it was as though he
were struck in the chest. She was neither especially beautiful
nor especially young. Her hair was so fair that under the bright
light of the theatre it looked almost white. She was alone and,
he thought, in some distress. He was quite unable to prevent
himself from speaking to her--it was as though he acted under
some strong command. He asked her whether he could do anything
for her. She thanked him and asked him to get her some brandy:
she felt faint; she thought it was the heat. He fought his way to
the bar and got the brandy for her, and they then talked. He
discovered that she was an assistant in a flower-shop in
Knightsbridge. A week later she became his mistress.

He had thought that by this time he knew his character pretty
well. He was not lascivious, he was not light-minded, he hated to
do anything that could bring unhappiness to others. But this,
although he went over it again and again in his mind, recalling
the minutest details, sparing himself no accusations, examining
it from every conceivable angle, he could not understand at
all.

He had never been unfaithful to his wife before, he had never
conceived it possible that in any circumstances he could be
unfaithful to her. He was not a prude and was exceedingly
tolerant to his fellow-men. He did not believe himself to be of
any exceptional moral strength of character, but, because he
loved and admired his wife so truly, it seemed to him incredible
that he could ever have relations with any other woman.

Christine Bell was in no way an exceptional woman. She was
thirty-two years of age and had had, he knew, other lovers before
himself. She had an easy, agreeable, friendly nature, but she was
not intelligent nor cultured. She had certainly at first been
physically in love with him, but after some six weeks of their
intimacy he fancied that she considered him as an older genial
friend who was kind to her because he had a fancy for her. He was
indeed kind to her. For some while he was like a man submerged in
fiery and tempestuous waters. It was like that, as though he were
living under water in some strange world where nature was
changed, where houses were temples of coral, streets were paved
with mother-of-pearl, and a dim green light shivered always in
front of his eyes. And with this a fiery heat, so that his eyes
burnt, his throat was parched, his hands were dry. A pitiful
state for a man of his age! But he did not feel it to be pitiful.
For some while he was in a condition of eager and excited
exaltation. He considered no consequences, he wrote her
passionate and foolish letters, he gave her extravagant presents,
for which, to do her justice, she appeared to care very
little.

Looking back, it was extraordinary to him that no one, during
those weeks, noticed anything, but it happened that, at the end
of January, Fanny, who had not been well, went with Nell on a
cruise to the West Indies. It was, indeed, the consciousness,
early in March, that she would soon be returning that woke him
from his dream.

It was as though an enchantment had been placed on him and
then as suddenly withdrawn. One evening, talking to Christine
quietly in the little flat in Chelsea where she lived, he saw her
as she was. He saw that she was a kind, ordinary, good-natured,
commonplace woman and that he was in love with her no longer.

She, of course, saw it as quickly as he did and bore him no
kind of resentment. She also was not in love with him. It seemed
to her quite natural that these episodes should be bright, swift
and ephemeral. She had had a pleasant time, she had given him
everything that he wanted, but he was not a sensual man and the
permanent things that he wanted from a woman she could not
possibly give him. She did not want to give them to him, for his
passion, while it lasted, had seemed to her rather ridiculous.
She thought of him as his children did--that he was a dear old
thing--but, on the whole, for a continued affair, she preferred
someone younger. This episode had not appeared to her in any way
extraordinary as it did to him. They had both enjoyed their hours
together, and she wished him all the luck in the world.

This afternoon he was going to see her for the last time.

As he walked along the King's Road--he had taken the
Underground from Westminster to Sloane Square--he was
accompanied, it seemed, by a stranger, the man who had felt that
crazy and fanatical obsession. He was on no terms any longer with
that stranger, or on terms with him only enough to resent
him.

This man whom he had once known was no companion of his any
longer, but the effect of his company remained.

He turned down Manor Street by the Town Hall and, almost at
the river-end, arrived at a forbidding building with the
appearance of a Bishop whose countenance is noble but betrays
private stomach trouble. There was grandeur everywhere, but it
was a flaky, streaky grandeur; statues at intervals but statues
with peeling noses, wreaths of stone leaves and flowers soiled
with bird-droppings, and on the steps small fragments of
newspaper that rustled and fluttered against the stone like live
things.

He went inside, pushed the starting-knob of the lift, and on
the third floor found a door with a visiting-card, a little
grubby, inserted above the unpolished door-handle. 'Miss
Christine Bell' it read.

She opened the door to him and, when the door was closed, they
kissed as they always did, but he did not put his arms round her
nor did she wish him to do so.

In the sitting-room, which had a yellow wallpaper, a large
bright green pouf in front of the gas-fire, and two very silent
canaries in a cage by the window, they sat one on either side of
the pettish little fire which went, every once and again,
'Put--Put--Put' in accents of irritable discontent. The rain
began to beat against the window-pane, and suddenly one of the
canaries uttered an excited, emotional little chirp as though it
said, 'Well, here's some life at last! Here's something to be
thankful for!'

Christine did not pretend to be anything but weary. She had
had an awful morning in the shop. This was her half-day and
didn't she need it! 'The women were too frightful. All their
nerves seemed to be on edge--especially that dreadful old Lady
Hadden. She didn't know what she wanted. The narcissus was
faded, although I told her it had come straight up from the
country that same morning, and the white lilac was monstrously
dear, which it isn't, and so on and so on. I could have
smacked her old strawberry-face, really I could, and there we
have to stand, smiling and smiling. Oh, well, it's all in the
day's work, I suppose.' She lifted her eyes to his. She was
wearing a grey frock and was almost, except for a little rouge on
her lips, a shadow against the wall with her pale hair, her thin
form, her long slender hands.

She was, perhaps, a shadow. These last months had been
a dream; he had been in love with a ghost. And she looked at him,
thinking more than ever that he was 'a dear old thing.' He was
clumsy as a lover and absurd when he was passionate. She did not
want him ever to touch her again, but she was very sorry that
this was the last time that she would see his face, for he had
one of the kindest, best-natured countenances in the world. It
was his face really that she had fallen in love with, that she
was even a little bit in love with still. She liked it when he
was puzzled with something and wrinkled his eyebrows. She liked
the good-natured crow's-feet that were marked near his eyes when
he laughed. She liked his direct and honest gaze. Oh, he was a
good man, and really this kind of thing wasn't his game at
all. It was much better that it should end, especially as he
loved his wife and his wife loved him. She wasn't one for
breaking up married happiness. There wasn't so much of it about
as all that.

She smiled at him and said:

'Here I am idling and you wanting your tea.'

'Let me help,' he said.

'Oh no, you stay where you are.'

When she came back with the tea he thought: 'How well she does
this! She ought to be married! It's a shame.'

They talked of anything but the real thing. He told her of
Nicholas' arrival.

'Not written to you for ten years!' she cried. 'Looks as
though he was making use of you, if you ask me.'

'I don't know. He's not like other men. He lives from hand to
mouth--he always has. I wasn't over-pleased when I heard that
he'd come, but now that he's there he's very charming, you know.
He's got endless stories and is always in a good temper. My
wife's delighted--' He stopped. He'd better come to the point,
finish with it, and go.

'I'm terribly sorry this is the last visit,' he said.

'Yes,' she said. 'So am I. I'm very fond of you--I didn't know
how much until to-day.'

She got up and kissed him on the forehead. Then she went to a
shabby imitation Queen Anne writing-desk and from a drawer
produced a bundle of letters.

'Here they all are,' she said, giving them to him. 'Every one
of them. Every scrap. I'd like to keep them, of course--a sort of
consolation in my old age.' She laughed. 'But it's wiser not. If
you take my advice, Charlie, you'll burn the lot.'

'I will.' He didn't look at them.

She was an extremely honest woman. He knew that he could trust
her.

'I haven't kept them all. There was one--oh, well, you
know--after we had known one another about a week. I thought that
really was risky. I burnt it.'

'Thank you.' He looked at her with gratitude and great liking.
'There's only one thing makes me a little uneasy. There was one
night--I was lonely, I missed you--I couldn't sleep and I got up
and put on my dressing-gown and wrote to you. It was the sort of
letter you'd call silly--the sort you were always telling me not
to write. I put it in an envelope and meant to post it in the
morning. And then--do you remember?--when I saw you two days
later you said you'd never had it--I've never known what I did
with it. I should hate anyone to see it.'

'Well, you are a silly! The way married men behave
always beats me. Think of all the unhappiness there might be! And
I hate people to be unhappy.'

'Yes, I know. As a matter of fact I think I must have
posted it and for once the post went wrong. It doesn't often,
does it?'

He paused, hesitated, then went on:

'Look here, Christine. This is a bit difficult to say. But
although we aren't going to meet again I'm awfully fond of you--I
admire you so much. And then of course I'll never forget what's
happened. And you've been so good . . .' He stopped, stammering,
while she watched him with amused, maternal eyes. As she said
nothing, he went on:

'What I mean is--I wish you'd let me do something for you,
something that will really help you. I want to--'

'I know,' she broke in. 'I understand. But it's all right.
Don't you worry. I'm fine. If ever I'm in a hole I'll let you
know. I promise I will. But I don't want to be dependent on
anyone. You've been awfully good and generous to me. You're the
kindest man I've ever known, the best-hearted. Really, you are. I
don't want a thing, thanks very much. I'd rather not,
really.'

They had never been better friends than at this moment, never
understood one another more completely.

She went on: 'You know, Charlie, I've often wondered what you
think of me--what you think I am, I mean. You're a simple soul in
lots of ways, and I'll tell you one thing--you don't know much
about women. You men who are devoted to your wives, you don't
know anything about women at all. Really, you don't. Not even
about your wife. When you're as devoted to a woman as all that,
you don't see her as she is, not a bit. You think you do, of
course. Now I know a lot about men. I like men and you
don't really like women. You sort of despise them,
really. But I've known all sorts of men--bad, good and
indifferent. Oh, I've known some bad ones all right. I like being
kind to men, poor things. They're so sentimental. What they want
is to have the physical excitement and all the fine
feelings--all going on together for evermore. And of course it
doesn't, and when the physical excitement's over the fine
feelings are over too. And they're lost and bewildered, poor
dears. Can't think what's happened. That's the nice ones of
course. As to the rotters--I know how to deal with them all
right. But I've never taken a penny from a man and I never will.
I've simply given a man a good time if he's wanted it and if I
liked him. And one day perhaps the real right man will
come along--the sort a woman's always dreaming of. But by that
time I'll be too old. Oh, well, there's always a dog or a cat you
can look after. I don't worry.'

She smiled.

'Of course I knew this wouldn't last. And a good thing
it hasn't too. Your wife must be a dear from what you say. I
wouldn't hurt her for the world.'

'It's the last flash of my youth,' Charles said. It will never
happen again. I don't want it to. You were right there,
Christine. I'm not the sort of man who can be happy leading two
lives at once. If you hadn't been such a good sort I might have
made a mess of it. And if I thought I'd done you any harm--'

She laughed at that.

'Done me any harm? Why, I've had all the fun. You've
been sweet to me, Charlie. I'll never forget it. If you were
single we'd go on being friends for ever and ever. But as it is
it's better this way.'

They stood together for a little, his arm round her waist, in
front of the sputtering fire. They embraced, and she stroked his
cheek with her hand. 'You always shave so beautifully. You're so
clean and you smell so nice, and your hair's strong and wiry.
You're awfully strong really, aren't you? And I like your eyes
best of anyone's.'

She kissed him on the mouth. Then she pushed him to the
door.

'There's your hat and coat. Funny! I know that coat so well
and I'll never see it again. You'd better go or I'll make a fool
of myself.'

He went out.

In the King's Road he found that he was a little unsteady on
his feet. A cold wind was blowing, driving the flares on the
barrows into wild tongues of flame, and the bright Cinema on the
opposite side of the road, its poster of Wallace Beery and Marie
Dressler splashing the dark wall with colour, seemed to him to be
also a little unsteady, as though at any moment the twinkling
lights might run down in flaming streams and flood the pavement
with liquid fire.

It was so cold that he turned up the collar of his overcoat.
And only yesterday there had been that wonderful spring evening!
He had smelt flowers in the air.

London is suddenly dangerous. Every vehicle threatens you, and
the houses shake their chimneys above your defenceless head.
London can be dangerous, but only because some virtue has gone
out of yourself. Virtue had gone now out of Charles. The episode
was ended. He would never see Christine again. No harm had been
done to anyone. No harm could come. . . . And yet for the
first time since it began he was apprehensive. He had a strange
fear that he would not get home to Fanny safely. For the first
time he felt that he had done something shabby. But why?
Christine was none the worse, he was none the worse, Fanny
was none the worse. And yet there was some shabbiness somewhere,
some concealed disgust.

His heart ached for Fanny. Like so many husbands returning to
their good wives after an act of which they are ashamed, he
wanted to do something for her, to give her things, to love her
and make a fuss of her. . . .

Her goodness, kindness, generosity, simpleness of heart--he
didn't deserve them, he took them for granted. He would remember
in the future that he could not make enough of her. But the
spring evening was gone. Buried in the Underground he could fancy
the wind screaming overhead. The women and the men, tightly
packed in despondent rows, looked windblown. At Westminster he
got out of the train as though he expected someone to stab him in
the back.

But no, it was only Frobisher, who got out at the same time.
Frobisher was thin and bald and a little chilly in spirit, but
that was because Mrs. Frobisher--who was warm and eager and never
stopped talking--adored Frobisher so dearly that she had taken
his soul into her keeping, so that Frobisher was a shell, a husk,
poor man. But he didn't know it. He believed in his wife's
estimate.

'Hullo, Carlisle!'

'Hullo, Frobisher!'

'Very cold wind.'

'Yes, isn't it? After that glorious day yesterday. How's the
painting?'

'Mustn't complain. Got to go up North tomorrow to paint a
Mayoress.'

'Wife going with you?'

'Of course. We don't like to be separated, you know.'

They parted.

Charles found his wife in her bedroom. He put his arms round
her and held her close to him as though he hadn't seen her for
months. Fanny was a girl, a child. He was her father and lover
and husband and son.

They talked a little, sitting on the edge of the bed, her hand
on his shoulder.

'Well, I must go down and see that Edward's all right,' she
said. She kissed him. 'There's one thing. Grace gave me some
change yesterday--for those towels. Do you remember? We were all
together having tea, and she put it on one of the tables. I know
I picked it up--it was some loose silver--but what I did with it
I can't imagine.'

'Never mind. I'll give you some more.'

'Oh, it isn't that! But what can I have done with it?'

'How's Nicholas?'

'All right, I think. The house feels quite different. He's so
jolly and friendly with everyone. But that's a funny little girl.
She never speaks.'

'She's shy yet,' said Charles. 'Edward will do her good.' And
then at the thought that he'd got Fanny safely, that they were
together now, that he had no secret any longer, he caught her
face in his hands, looked into her eyes and kissed them.

She was terribly pleased and very readily those same eyes
filled with tears.

'Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister.

'That, Eliza dear, is a poem written about a thousand years
ago by the Chinese poet Su Tung-p'o. I have a remarkable memory
for poetry, as you must often have noticed--and especially when
it concerns myself. I, too, have been ruined by my
intelligence.'

He was standing, in shirt and trousers, arranging his black
tie in front of the glass while his daughter, Lizzie, sat in a
chair near his bed reading a book with a green paper back.

When he had tied his tie Nicholas turned round and looked at a
small oil painting that rested against the arm of the sofa at the
bed-foot. The sofa was of a faded rose-colour, and the painting,
which was by Sickert, was a study in dark red and yellow of a
London street. It was in dull colours save for a bright green
doorway in the foreground.

'That,' he said, 'is a little masterpiece. I saw it in
your cousin Romney's room and I asked him whether I might take it
away for half an hour and look at it. He has four Sickerts that
he bought when the going was good, before the prices went up. He
may forget about this one. Sickert is the only living painter
that England possesses. That is a masterpiece.'

He went over to his bed to pick up his coat and waistcoat. He
looked over her shoulder to see what it was that she was
reading--the César Birotteau of Balzac.

'That's rather a stiff one. Such a lot of business in it.'

'I like all the details,' she said. 'I like books that tell
you everything.'

Then he laughed, for on the bed beside her there were three
books. He picked them up. One was The Head Girl of the
School, by Edith Thompson; another, With Redskin and
Tomahawk, by Henry Reeve; and the third, Sea-Spray and
Daffodils, by Dorothy Merle.

'My God!' he said. 'Did Aunt Grace give you these?'

'Yes,' said Lizzie, looking up and smiling. 'She says she has
many more of the same kind.'

'How do you like supper with Edward?' he asked.

'I like Edward. He's intelligent.'

'Intelligent!' Nicholas cried. 'I should have thought that the
last thing he was.'

'Oh no!' She put her book down, that she might think more
clearly. 'Not intelligent, of course, about books and people and
places. He's never been anywhere and he's never read anything
at all. But intelligent about his daily life. He can make
me see it, the silly things they do. They wear high hats and they
stick pins into one another. Also they think more about kicking a
ball than anything else. I laughed when he told me and then he
laughed too. I like Edward. He's very young for his
age.'

'And you're old for yours, don't forget,' her father said.
'Anyway, over here. We have to behave ourselves, Eliza. This will
suit me for some time to come. If only I can stop my
tricks . . .'

He stood looking at the Sickert, thinking his thoughts. His
tricks were picking and stealing, making fun of those around him,
interfering maliciously with their lives because they were so
stupid and it was such fun to see what they would do! He
wished no one in the world any harm, and when he encountered an
intelligence as good as his own he greeted it instantly, as one
robber baron, in the old days, greeted another. For it did not
appear to him conceivable that in these days you could be, if
intelligent, also moral. He could be kindly, generous,
enthusiastic, but stupidity, old-fashionedness, roused his
contempt, and his contempt could make him cruel. And as to the
affections, he loved only Lizzie and himself. The world, he would
say, had made him an outlaw--his hand was against every
man's--but he liked it to be so! He had lived on his
fellow-humans, robbed and pillaged them his whole life long. He
remembered how, when a child of five, he had stolen a small
tortoiseshell box that belonged to his mother, and how greatly
astonished he had been that no one discovered the theft. It had
been so easy and he had felt so pleasant to everyone after it! So
all his life he had continued. He had been discovered once or
twice, and the consequences of these discoveries were still with
him--but that only made life the more exciting and
amusing!

In general he had not been discovered. What happened as
a rule was that someone invited Lizzie and himself to stay, found
his company so charming that the visit was prolonged and
prolonged. And then--oh, then the atmosphere changed. He wasn't
so popular. Nothing could be exactly charged against him but some
too-venturesome love-making, some uncertainty about a cheque or a
bibelot, or, more often, quarrels among the people with whom he
was staying (who, until his visit, had been most
harmonious!)--such trifles as these led to his departure. . . .
Lizzie and himself, they moved on somewhere else!

He thought of all the places where he had been with great
affection. He bore no one any malice. He might dislike them or
despise them (the two were synonymous) at the time, but he soon
forgot. And now he had flown, like a homing pigeon, back
to his own nest. He had delayed this particular visit unduly
simply because he had feared that his boredom would be so
appalling! Fanny and Charles, Matthew and Grace, the Old
Lady--how awful!

Necessity had driven him. These were hard times the world
over. People were not so accommodating as they had been once.
They hadn't the money. The world, in fact, was beginning to be
alarmingly full of people like himself. Both Italy and Spain were
at the moment uncomfortable for him. He disliked England with its
dreadful climate and still more dreadful food. But there it was.
The Family might do for a brief while until Louise Brieux forgave
him or the Pervises in Sicily saw what a mistake they had made in
losing his delightful company!

And now!--well, really, he wasn't sure. He thought that the
visit would not be so bad. They were too extraordinary,
these people, after the company that he had been keeping--Fanny
and Charles, Matthew and Grace--quite incredible! Their
simplicity, their sentiment! Why, they still, in this year of
grace 1932, believed in family life! They clung together like a
brood of ducks on a stagnant pond! They loved one another! They
looked up to one another! Even the young people thought their
father and mother wonderful! He liked it, he admired it. It was
something so novel and so refreshing that he positively admired
it.

It was also something round which his sense of humour might
play. Here was a game! He felt his creative power rising in him.
He could make something of this, turn these good, simple
relations of his into a new pattern.

And the girl was pretty, one of the prettiest he had seen for
a long time.

That made him think of something. He said to Lizzie:

'Abel's turned up already. I'm going to see him to-night.'

Lizzie did not look up from her book, only she said, as though
into the very heart of the page: 'He has been very quick this
time, Papa.'

'Yes, hasn't he? I don't know how the devil he finds out. But
he won't get anything out of me. He can do his damnedest.'

Propped against the leg of the looking-glass was Arthur
Waley's 170 Chinese Poems, and Nicholas was learning one
of these by heart. This was one of his tricks, a trick of which
he was peacock-proud, for he had a quite extraordinary memory
which might, had he wished it, have been put to real uses. As it
was, he was Macaulay-like in his genius for quotation. He could
spout anything, poetry or prose, suiting his words to his
company, bawdy with the bawdy (and he could be bawdy!),
pious with the pious (satirical then, but they never detected
it), and when with those who shared his own enthusiasms--an odd
magpie heap, Christopher Marlowe, Proust, Donne, Calverley,
Peacock, Joyce's Ulysses, Webster and Tourneur, Spengler
and Amanda M'Kittrick Ros--he could, for a moment, drop his
conceit, his malice, his monkey acquisitiveness. Of modern and
living English writers he admired only two--the author of His
Monkey Wife and the author of The Orators.

But he cared for books as he cared for music and pictures,
acquisitively, to snatch these things and make them his and then,
like the Emperor of all the lovely things in the world, to deal
them out, to flash them before the eyes of his subjects. It
really seemed to him sometimes that Marlowe and Donne and Webster
had written only for himself. That was why he made a pose of
despising Shakespeare, because he knew that he was too great for
his capture.

He turned round to Lizzie and threw her the book.

'Hear me this,' he said. 'Page thirty-two--"Meeting in the
Road."'

Like a child, with his hands clasped in front of him, he
repeated:

'In a narrow road where there was not room to pass
My carriage met the carriage of a young man.
And while his axle was touching my axle
In the narrow road I asked him where he lived.
"The place where I live is easy enough to find,
Easy to find and difficult to forget.
The gates of my house--"'

He paused.

'The gates of my house--Damn! What's next?'

'--are built of yellow gold,' said Lizzie.

'Oh yes:

--'"are built of yellow gold,
The hall of my house is paved with white jade,
On the hall table flagons of wine are set,
I have summoned to serve me dancers of Han-tan.
In the midst of the courtyard grows a cassia-tree,--
And candles on its branches flaring away in the night."'

He chuckled with satisfaction.

'There! That's pretty good. I only read it through twice. And
now I'll never forget it again. You've got a clever father, my
girl.'

He bent down and kissed her.

'Here, you go to bed soon. Don't sit up all night reading.
I've got to go out after dinner and see Abel.'

On the way downstairs he met the servant Janet coming up. He
paused to let her pass.

'Mustn't pass on the stairs, Janet,' he said cheerfully. 'It's
unlucky.'

But she didn't answer; only, her tall figure drawn to its full
height, quietly went by.

'She detests me, that woman,' he thought, and for a moment
considered some way in which he might vex her, for, like all
egotists, he hated, like a child, to be disliked.

They all went down to dinner. Nicholas sat between Nell and
Grace and he made himself charming to both of them. Family meals
had become something quite different since Nicholas' arrival.
Before, they had been a little dull--homely, comfortable, but a
little dull. Nell and Romney were often out, and the older people
asked one another questions about the day and concentrated on
their own personal well-being. Grace always had plenty to say,
but nobody listened. Old Mrs. Carlisle came down sometimes, but
lately had had, very often, her dinner in bed. It was noticed
that now that Nicholas was here she came down every night. Fanny
was quiet, seeing that everyone had what they wanted.

The food, Nicholas thought, was good for English food. He was
pleased about that, and Charles had some good wine in his cellar.
Before Nicholas came it had been only on special occasions that
it appeared, for neither Charles nor Matthew cared much about it.
But now Nicholas said: 'Jolly good claret, old man,' and Charles
was pleased.

Romney and Nell had agreed in the past that family meals were
pretty awful, but now everything was different. Everyone drank
more, and Nicholas' stories were wonderful.

'The amount he knows,' Romney said to Nell. 'The places he's
been and the things he's read.'

'Yes,' said Nell, who had not surrendered yet. 'When you spend
your life living on other people you have plenty of time to
notice things.'

Nevertheless she herself admitted that he was wonderful
company. But she didn't like him. Why, she was not sure. It was
the way that he looked at her, almost as though they shared some
secret together. And she had told him nothing. He couldn't
know about Hector Collins, for instance. . . . Not that
there was anything to know, of course.

The only one of them all who did not like these gay meals as
much as the old ones was Fanny. She had enjoyed the quiet
comfortable cosiness, and both Charles and Romney, she thought,
drank too much. And Grace was silly sometimes. Nicholas seemed to
want her to be silly.

And then, after a thought or two like this, she blamed
herself. How ungracious when Nicholas was so kind and jolly, when
he had made himself so quickly at home with them all! They had
never had so gay a time . . . no, they had all needed waking up,
and here was Nicholas doing it for them. Dear Nicholas, the same
clever, generous, irresponsible, warm-hearted boy that he had
always been. As she listened to him she felt a wonderful pride in
him. He was her brother and she was sure that he was cleverer
than anyone else in London. So clever was he that she found
herself now a little shy of speaking in the rash careless way
that had always been her habit. He was never unkind or rude, but
sometimes now when she said something it did seem foolish
and she fancied that the others thought so too. Only her
sensitiveness, and it did not really suit her to be careful. Her
considered remark was sometimes as silly as her spontaneous one,
she was afraid. She wished that she had had a better education,
but she and Grace really learnt nothing at that school in
Wiltshire. Young people to-day knew so much about everything. She
wondered, in fact, that Grace had so little fear of exposing
herself. She never seemed to see that the others were laughing at
her, or if she saw she did not care.

So she watched to see that everyone was happy, and said as
little as possible. And then after a while she was afraid lest
they should think her too quiet. So she joined in.

'The fact is,' said Nicholas, laughing, 'that Einstein doesn't
care whether his theory is right or not. What he wants to
do is to learn the violin.'

'Well,' said Fanny, 'I know that Romney thinks he's wonderful,
but there was a picture in one of the papers the other day of his
"Genesis" and I'm sure no one could--'

Of course they all laughed at that, and even Grace cried
triumphantly: 'You mean Epstein, darling--the man who put that
thing in the Park. They said it was meant for the birds to drink
out of, but I'm told the birds won't go near it--frightened of
it, and I'm sure I don't wonder. . . .'

'We're two silly old women, Grace and I,' Fanny thought, and
wished that Charles at least had not laughed. He did not know
much about Epstein himself come to that.

But it was Nicholas who said:

'It's all very well your laughing at your mother, Nell. The
next generation will be laughing at you very soon.'

And that did not really make it better because, until he said
that, Fanny had not thought that Nell was laughing at
her.

They talked about what they would do after dinner. Now that
Nicholas was there they played bridge--Nicholas, Nell, Romney and
Charles. They did not talk and read books round the fire any
more. Matthew went to his room and Grace and Fanny read, but they
felt self-conscious. And Nicholas was so good at bridge. Charles
and Romney lost money every night.

However, this evening it was not to be.

'No. I've got to go out and see a friend,' Nicholas said.

They were all sorry.

'Yes, an old friend. I knew him in Italy.'

'Ask him to a meal,' said Charles.

'Oh, thanks very much, but I don't think you'd like him. He's
one of my bad friends.'

Everyone laughed. Nicholas and his bad friends! It sounded
most romantic.

Abel Mandez was lodging at a hotel called 'The Prince Regent,'
off Victoria Street.

'Like his cheek,' Nicholas thought when he read his badly
written, badly spelt note, 'to get as near as he can.' But indeed
Abel had been quick this time! How the devil had he known?
Nicholas himself had decided to throw himself on the family only
a day or two before his actual arrival. At the shabby little
hotel in Paris where he and Lizzie had been staying, Abel had
made no appearance.

'He knew that I hadn't a bean,' Nicholas reflected. 'He thinks
now that I've come into cash again. But I haven't yet. The day
that we turned up in London I positively hadn't a sou. And all
next day only that scrap of change I picked off the table.' But
last night Charles had lent him fifty pounds--and that was only a
beginning. Young Romney and his pictures, Matthew and his kind
heart, Grace and her sentimentality. Oh! there was lots to be
done here!

'And so Abel jolly well knows. I shouldn't wonder if he's got
the whole family at his finger-ends already. Marvellous
fellow!'

As he walked from the house down the little silent street,
past the school, under the archway into the lights and bustle of
Victoria Street he felt, with a warm almost animal pleasure, his
other life streaming in upon him--the life of risks and
adventures, rascals and scoundrels, the life without law or
principle that was really his. Once upon a time this had been a
world rather thinly peopled, and exceptional enough to be almost
melodramatic. The high lights in it--the flight from Jamaica, the
death of his wife in Paris, Bawtrey's suicide in Monte Carlo, the
thieving in Rapallo, Saunders' death in Venice, these might once
have been called melodrama. Novelists threw bright colours on
just such incidents as these, drab and unromantic though they
always were in reality, comprised of discarded tram-tickets, the
week's washing, wine splashed on a marble-topped table, a
barber's impertinence, a fit of indigestion, a woman's cold. . .
. Yes, once exceptional enough to be lurid, but now the whole
world was composed, it seemed to Nicholas, of just such figures,
just such incidents. He moved surrounded by a constant company of
men, out of a job, ready to do anything for money, by suicide,
murder and robbery with violence. One figure led to another.
Touch Abel and you found Marston, have a meal with Marston and he
introduced you to Likiadopulos, drink with Likiadopulos and he
asked you to meet Mme. Balzac. . . . Always a little lower. . .
.

Certainly, during those last months in Italy, he had kept some
queer company, and on the whole it was as well that he had pulled
himself out of it when he did. But the thing that he loved was
the contrast of these two worlds. To pass, as he was now doing,
from the English domesticity of the house in Westminster, the
quiet old-fashionedness of those people who all felt so safe, who
lived, even in these days, with the habits and morals and blind
security of old Victorian England, to appear to be one of them,
to mimic their tones (but was it mimicking? he was by birth and
breeding one of their very selves), to compel their trust, to
make them fond of him and proud of him--and then, with one step,
to pass into this other real world where society was
disintegrating into chaos, where there were no laws, no rules
except that the cleverest collared the booty--yes, this
was a sensation that stirred his blood!

It would be fun to-night, sitting in the shabby little room
with the aspidistra and the smell of drains and stale tobacco (he
knew the room before he had seen it), to tell Abel in his own
humorous fashion that this time he should not have a penny from
him, that he could hang on as long as he liked and starve for all
Nicholas cared, and then to see Abel, as so often before he had
seen him, smile and roll one of his poisonous cigarettes and say
that he didn't care, that he was in London for his own
pleasure, that he had written to Nicholas only to send him a
friendly greeting, and so on and so on. . . .

But then (for now he was nearing the street) Nicholas for a
moment paused. He really, this time, did not want Abel's
company. He liked this place--it was new and refreshing, this
simple and childlike atmosphere. It was good for Lizzie. He felt
an affection for all of them, the Old Lady, Fanny, Grace,
Charles, Matthew, the children. For a time at least he would try
and behave. It would be amusing for a while to play at being one
of themselves. Although everything in which they believed was
nonsense, that very fact made them, for the present at least,
rather touching to him. It was so long since he had seen people
like this, living, breathing people who believed in God and the
family and wedded bliss. Fanny was as strange to him, after all
these years, as some queer bird in a zoo. Over and over again in
these last days, listening to her innocent prattle, he had had to
pinch his mental self to persuade it that this was actual.

That they believed in him and trusted him touched him very
little, for, in these days, that anyone should believe in anyone
implied an imbecility that deserved almost any punishment!

But he was, in truth, grateful to them for giving him a new
sensation, and while it was new he did not intend to spoil
it. So--let Abel keep off! He would jolly well see to it that he
did!

So, murmuring to himself:

'The gates of my house are built of yellow gold,
The hall of my house is paved with white jade,'

Opening the door, he found himself in a little stuffy hall
with a large palm, a soiled settee, two shabby chairs and an
aperture on the left; behind this last a stout woman with untidy
yellow hair was seated.

'Good evening,' he said, smiling his charming smile.

The lady looked up, scowling, then seeing so elegant a
gentleman, patted her hair and looked at him expectantly.

'Is a gentleman, Mr. Mandez, staying here?'

She turned over the pages of a book.

'What name?'

'Mandez.'

'No, I don't think--oh yes--'

'He's expecting me.'

She leaned forward and cried: 'Henry, see if the gentleman in
Number Ten is in.'

A long, thin youth appeared apparently from the middle of the
palm.

'What name?' she asked.

'Oh, never mind--say the gentleman he's expecting.'

Henry disappeared.

'Nice weather we're having,' she remarked.

'Yes, aren't we?' said Nicholas, very friendly. 'It will soon
be proper spring.'

'Yes--I like the spring. What I mean is, you know the winter's
over.'

'Business good?' Nicholas asked.

'Oh, mustn't complain--not what it was of course, but then
nothing is, what with the slump an' all.'

He could see that she was stirred with a great curiosity. It
wasn't often that a gentleman like this visited the hotel. She
couldn't take her eyes off him.

Henry appeared.

'Gentleman's in his room,' he remarked. He too stared at
Nicholas as though he had never seen anything like him.

'Take the gentleman up.'

She leaned out, looking after him. Another lady appeared from
nowhere. They began an eager conversation.

The stairs were dark and smelt--as Nicholas had expected--of
drains, sour beer and tobacco. The passage was so dark that the
doors were invisible, but there was a knock and Mandez stood
there, his lighted room illuminating him. Nicholas went in,
closing the door after him.

So here was little Abel again, just as he had been in so many
other places, the room with its frowsty smell, untidy litter, so
like all the other rooms of his that he might be a snail who
carried his house on his back.

Nicholas sniffed.

'I say--open the window a minute.'

As Nicholas looked at the man it seemed to him, as it always
did after an absence, that he was greeting part of himself. Abel
Mandez was short and sturdy, with a round childlike, plump, brown
face. He had great breadth of shoulder, width of chest, strong
arms, but his legs were small and meagre. He had small hands and
feet. His hair was of a jet-gleaming blackness, and his brown
face clean-shaven, almost bare of eyebrows, naked. He had black
eyes, very white teeth which he often showed because he smiled
continually. He was a Jamaican half-caste. He was dressed very
quietly in a dark brown suit and he was wearing brown bedroom
slippers. The backs of his brown hands wore covered with dark
black hairs. His little eyes, his mouth, his whole body were
smiling, for he loved Nicholas more than any man, woman or child
in the world. He loved him and blackmailed him, robbed him, stole
from him.

'Well, Abel,' Nicholas said after he had watched him open the
window. 'How are you? What a filthy room this is!'

It was filthy with its stained wall-paper, a bed
unmade, a basin with dirty water in it.

'Yes,' said Abel. 'I've been sleeping all afternoon.'

They sat down near to one another.

'How are you, Captain?' said Abel. 'It's damned good seeing
you again.' Indeed, he could not take his eyes from Nicholas. He
looked at him, grinning, as though he had never seen him before,
as though he had never known that there was anyone so splendid in
the world.

'Have a drink?' said Abel.

'No, thanks. How did you know where I was?'

'Why, Captain, sure. I know everything you do, every place you
go. Sure I do. You know that. I'm your friend.'

Nicholas looked at him and thought that yes, that was probably
true. Abel was perhaps the only friend he had in the world. Yet
he would rob him without mercy, murder him perhaps if there was
enough reward offered. But he would be sorry afterwards--he would
be sorry and lonely and unhappy for the rest of his life.

'Yes--well--all right,' said Nicholas. 'I've only come in for
a moment--just to say that it's no good your hanging around this
time. There's nothing to get, and after to-night I don't see you
again. Understand?'

Abel crossed his little legs while his fingers were busy
rolling a cigarette.

'Certainly, Captain, I understand. How's Lizzie?'

'Never mind about Lizzie. I've only come here to say the one
thing. You'd better get back to where you came from.'

'Sure. How long are you going to stay where you are?'

'Never mind how long. I'm with my own people and that's just
where you don't come in. If you show your face anywhere near me
while I'm in London, I'll have you gaoled.'

'Why, yes, I understand.' Abel drew his chair a little closer.
'But don't go for a minute. It's good to see you again. I miss
you something terrible--honest I do.'

And Nicholas felt it also. This man had been mixed up with so
much of his life, with all the rottenest part of it. To be with
him was so easy, familiar. He could be himself. There was nothing
to conceal. Abel was bad all through, there was nothing he would
stop at if his passions of lust, fear, greed, jealousy were
driving him. And Nicholas liked that. He liked a man who would
stop at nothing and about whom there was nothing concealed, no
nonsense, no hypocrisy, no fine sentiment. Yes--but this time
Abel must keep off.

He got up. 'No, I mean it. Every word of it. I've come here
only to say that. Don't let me see your dirty little face or
handle one of your mean little letters while I'm here. I've said
this before and you haven't believed it. But now you've got to
believe it or you'll be sorry.'

'O.K., Captain.'

Abel also rose. They stood close together, Nicholas by far the
taller, magnificent, superior; the little man like a dog,
watching, at his feet.

'I haven't a sou in the world, Captain,' Abel said.

Nicholas took the loose change from his pocket and put it on
the table.

'There! That's all I have on me.'

'That'll do for the present.'

'It's got to do, now and ever. I'm sick to death of your
following me. I'm going to lead a respectable, English,
God-fearing life--the sort of life you haven't the least notion
of.'

'O.K., Captain.' Abel swept the silver into his pocket. Then
they both laughed. Nicholas couldn't help himself, for it was
like being at home again to see that round plump face, the small
sparkling eyes, the restless brown hands.

Nicholas moved to the door.

'Well, that's enough. I've told you and you've heard. You
don't need telling again. If you come near me or interfere in any
way whatever I'll break your neck.'

Abel put his hand on Nicholas' arm. For a moment they stood
close together.

About a fortnight after Nicholas' arrival Fanny woke one
morning burdened with a sense of distress. As always when one
wakes to an immediate awareness of misfortune, time must pass
before the actual cause is realised. And now she lay, looking at
the soft morning light that moved like water on the ceiling, and
wondered wherein her unhappiness lay.

But was it unhappiness? Rather it was discomfort, vague,
nebulous, hovering about her heart as the dim shadowed early
sunlight hovered on the ceiling. Something was not quite right.
She thought first, as on waking she always did, of Charles and
the children. So far as she knew, all was well with them.
Charles, the sheet drawn up to his ear, slept warmly beside her.
They were such old-fashioned people that they still slept in the
same bed as they had done throughout their married life. She
listened to his soft, sibilant breathing, looked at his ruffled
hair and one hand clenched on the outside of the bed. Yes, there
was nothing the matter with Charles.

Everyone in the house was well--well and, as far as she knew,
happy. The house itself was happy. As she often did she went
imaginatively through it, visiting the rooms, caressing with her
mind the dearly loved furniture. It stood about her--warm,
comfortable, loving. In the hall the painting of her father,
stout, rubicund, sitting in his room, Caesar, the dog that he
loved best of all his dogs, at his feet. The dining-room now
would just be catching the first light, the silver on the
sideboard faintly gleaming, the antlers over the fireplace, the
large white marble clock that had ticked so ferociously all
night, keeping guard over the room while everyone slept; the
drawing-room with the lacquer screen and the Bonington and the
Persian rug with the dark purple flowers, the great set of ivory
chessmen, the Castles on horseback, the Knights with their
lances, the Bishops in their mitres--the famous set which had
been passed down through the family generation after generation.
. . .

And then the bedrooms. Romney sleeping, she was sure, with the
bed-clothes flung off him; Nell snuggled up like a bird in a
nest; Edward with his head crooked in his arm--yes, all was well
with the house and everyone in it. Well, then, what was wrong?
She sighed and instinctively, without knowing it, put out her
hand and felt Charles' stout arm beneath the bed-clothes as
though for protection. She was well herself. She had slept the
night through without dreams. She was ready for all the tasks and
pleasures of the day. Well, then, what?

Was it the general state of the world which she had, like so
many others, for so long disregarded? Was it now forcing itself
upon her, all these poor men unemployed through no fault of their
own. America not understanding England. England not understanding
America. Germany and France still hating one another, that
terrible Russia, greedy Japan, and, only yesterday, Janet telling
her about her cousin in Newcastle who had been out of work for a
year, with three beautiful little children--'and him ready to
work at anything if he could only find it.' Yes, it was partly
that, perhaps, although what could Fanny do about it, knowing so
little about politics and having to believe what the newspapers
told her, although they were most unreliable as everyone knew?
She felt in her heart an ache of sympathy for all the world. It
seemed wrong that they--her family--should all be so happy and
comfortable and safe when there were so many in such distress.
Safe? Were they safe? It was then that sharp actual fear attacked
her. Somewhere there was danger--danger to herself, to those whom
she so passionately loved. Danger? But where was there danger?
Not here, not in this house. The light broadened through the
room. The clock on the mantelpiece struck seven. Great shafts of
light stroked the carpet and beyond the window she could hear the
sparrows chirping.

Charles turned. He muttered. He stretched his arms. He raised
his head and yawned.

'Hullo, old lady, what time is it?'

He took her in his arms and kissed her. She lay against his
chest, her heart beating on his. She pinched his cheek, brushed
back his hair from his forehead.

'It's just struck seven and it's a lovely morning.'

'Oh Lord! Good--another hour's sleep.'

He lay back, one arm stretched over his head, breathing
deeply, happily, his pyjama jacket open.

But he did not turn over and sleep again. Her hand had found
his and he knew from her pressure that something distressed
her.

'What is it? Anything the matter?'

He put out his arm and she rested her hand inside it, lying
close against him. He rubbed his eyes with his free hand and
yawned again.

'What are you awake for?' he asked. 'Been having dreams?'

'No--I've slept beautifully.'

'Well, then, what about a little more?'

'Yes, of course. You turn over and go to sleep.'

But he was so sensitive to her, knew so well her moods and
joys and fears that he could not mistake her apprehension.

'No, there's something the matter. What is it?'

'Nothing. Only--I've been awake and thinking.'

'Thinking? That's a bad thing at this hour of the
morning.'

She murmured:

'Everything's all right, isn't it?'

'Of course everything's all right. What shouldn't be?'

She kissed him again. Her hand rested against his cheek.

'I wish Romney hadn't told that story last night,' she
suddenly broke out.

'What story?' Charles asked sleepily.

'That one about the hotel and the old lady.'

'Oh, that one!' He sat up, yawning ferociously,
stretching his arms. 'There was nothing in that.'

'No, I know.' She hesitated. 'Only he wouldn't have told it a
year ago--not among all of us, I mean.'

He lay down again, drawing her close to him.

'We're old-fashioned, you and I. The things we wouldn't have
done when we were young--well, what I mean is, times are
changed.'

'Yes, I know.'

But that wasn't what she meant. She lay against him, thinking.
She suddenly realized how glad she was that she had got
Charles. In these strange, shifting days it meant everything to
have someone with you on whom you could entirely rely, someone
who would never deceive you, who belonged to the whole world of
trust and fidelity and honour.

So many husbands in these days deceived their wives, and
although she was determined to be broad-minded and generous, to
condemn no one, to move, as well as she was able, with the times,
yet if she had not Charles, how difficult, how lonely sometimes,
life would be!

She turned and kissed him.

'Charles, don't think me silly, but you don't know what
it is to me sometimes to feel so sure of you. Everything else is
changing. The children are growing up and sometimes I think I'm
losing them, but you--I can trust you in everything--you never
fail me--'

Rather surprisingly he moved away a little.

'You mustn't trust anybody, Fanny,' he said.

'Not trust--?' She sat up. 'What do you mean?'

'Oh, nothing. Only we all have our queer times.'

'You don't. You never change. It wouldn't be you
if you did.' She went on: 'I suppose Nicholas will get a job
soon.'

'A job? What sort of a job?'

'That's what he's here for, isn't it? He's so clever. He could
do anything.'

'Yes, well, it isn't so easy to get a job these days--not for
a man of his age.'

'Oh, but he must. He can't stay here for ever doing
nothing. Of course, it's lovely his being here. He brightens
everything up. But he'll have to get something. What will he live
on?'

'Yes; as a matter of fact I lent him fifty pounds the other
day.'

She turned towards him, startled.

'Oh, did you? That was good of you. That was just like you.
But you shouldn't. That wasn't right of Nicholas.'

'Oh, he'll pay it back in a week or two--when his money comes
from Paris. He's got a lot there, he tells me. But it's tied up
in some way.'

He took her hand in his.

'Don't you worry, old lady. I won't let Nicholas rob me.'

'No, of course not. Nicholas is all right. It's only that he
takes everything lightly. He's so irresponsible. He was always
the same, even when he was a little boy.' She added: 'You didn't
like him when he came. You like him better now, don't you?'

'Yes, I must say I do. He's not a bad chap. He makes you
laugh.'

She lay there and thought about it. She must take care not to
be a killjoy, not to seem old to them all. She did not seem to
herself to be old, but she supposed that she could never be rid
altogether of her upbringing.

But then, in the silence that followed, Charles lying on his
back, quietly dropping off to sleep again, the light pouring into
the room like water, she was attacked by one of those moments of
acute loneliness that come to all of us and to no one of us more
than to him or her who is dearly loved. It is as though a voice,
certain and timeless, whispered to us: 'You shall not live
by bread alone,' and at once we are aware of a consciousness far
truer, far severer than the material one. Our daily values are
seen suddenly to be false. We are helpless without our own naked
courage, our most intimate relationships with others are shadows,
and the long journey ahead of us has no familiar landmark, no
companionships, and is inevitable in its ruthlessness. At such a
moment of perception we can either deny the reality of our
experience or accept the conditions. All our later history may
depend on the choice we make, although afterwards we find other
excuses for the consequences. . . .

But Fanny's loneliness seemed to her now a new loneliness.
Suppose that everything was taken from her: Charles, the
children, the house? Suppose that it were true, the thing the
little woman had said in Bordon's that lovely spring
evening--'it's too good to last'--the world is disintegrating? No
one can hold together any more; nothing is stable, and the family
love and devotion that they had had for so long, was that to
shiver into pieces with the rest? How did she know any longer
what Romney and Nell and even Edward were thinking and doing?
Perhaps now they pretended to love her because it was
their duty, because they did not wish to hurt her? She had told
Charles that she could trust him, but could she? How did she know
what he was like when he was away in that strange man-world of
his? She saw them all meeting, these men, and they became at once
strange animals with horns and hoofs, their heads close together
mocking at women, wanting them only for certain needs, and then,
as soon as their needs were satisfied, trotting off, moving
herd-like across the open plain, their heads up, sniffing the
free air, happy at their release. . . .

She had been so deeply absorbed by the family that she had
made no women friends. You could not call Mrs. Frobisher a
friend, nor Millie Westcott (kind and good-hearted though
she was), nor Rose Lane. And if Charles went and the children. .
. . She was beginning to tremble. She was in an absurd state.
What had caused this? Who had caused it? It was as though she
knew that on the other side of the bedroom door a dark figure was
standing, his head forward, listening. . . . The long mirror on
the dressing-table, slanting forward, caught the chairs, the
carpet in a silver glaze. All was unreal in that world. And
behind the mirror there was another world, and behind that
another. Who was safe?

'At least I have Edward,' she thought. 'He is there.' But no.
He too was moving into a world away from her, talking with his
companions of things that she did not understand, listening to
stories that he would not wish her to hear. Edward whom, so
little a time ago, she had suckled at her breast, his tiny hands
moving up to her cheeks, and his eyes, wondering, absorbed,
altogether trustful, searching her face. Now he too was
going.

In fact and in truth Edward was just now keeping something
from his mother. He had had a very strange week.

Like all boys he had his own secret world; in this world he
moved as an Indian moves in the jungle, judging by a broken twig
here, an imprint in the dust, the sound of underground water.
This world was completely satisfactory to him, and even those for
whom he cared were allowed only glimpses into its fascinating
mystery.

And this world did not include girls. He despised them
profoundly, and, as it seemed to him, for excellent reasons. They
could do nothing. When they threw a ball or ran they were absurd.
They could not talk about anything that was of the least
importance. When they asked questions they were ridiculous.

And now, out of the blue, without warning, this girl had been
thrown into his life. When he came home, his mind busied with all
the important things that had to be considered, she sat at table
with him. The event of the day that he preferred to all others
(although he would confess this to no one)--the tea-hour that he
shared alone with his mother--was now entirely spoilt by the
presence of this girl. The room that had been recognized by all
the world as his own private kingdom was now invaded by this
girl.

It was not that she asked to share anything with him. She was
not like other girls. She did not run or throw balls. In fact,
she played no games; she despised them utterly. She seldom spoke
unless spoken to, but would sit there, reading a book or writing
on a piece of paper, or simply sitting, with her hands folded,
staring in front of her. She never laughed, she never
smiled--only, if Aunt Grace had taken her for a walk, she would,
on her return, have a look on her face that was almost a
smile.

He was not by nature a cruel little boy, but he tried, at
first, to entice her to do things that would make her look
foolish. He turned a somersault (he was clever at somersaults)
and dared her to do the same, but she looked at him with such an
air of cold surprise that he was suddenly less proud of his
somersaults than he had been.

Then, one evening, she helped him with his sums. She was
marvellous at sums. She did them in no time at all, and he
boasted about this at school. 'We've got a girl at home,' he
said, 'who can do sums as good as anyone. And she reads French
books like English.'

She had travelled, he discovered, almost over the whole world.
It appeared that in Rome she had seen the Pope, and in some other
place a sailor in a blue shirt had stuck another sailor with a
knife while she stood looking on. Most astonishing of all, she
had seen a woman produce a baby. He knew about babies--they
talked about everything at school. He had a clean, independent
mind, and all the things that did not belong to his world he
disregarded. Babies most certainly did not belong. Nevertheless
her account was interesting. He kept it to himself, even from his
closer friends, who would have been greatly excited at his
recital. He saw that Lizzie took everything with the greatest
calm, and he learnt from her to show no excitement. Only one side
of her experiences he loathed and, after the first anecdote or
two, gave her clearly to understand that he would hear no more.
All of this concerned the ill-treatment of animals, for he
understood that in Italy and Spain and other countries where she
had been they stuck sharp pins into donkeys, beat horses until
they had sore places, and knocked dogs against the wall. At one
of her more horrible stories (which she related in a perfectly
calm and unperturbed voice) he went suddenly very white and was
sick, there and then, on the floor. The next time she attempted
such a narrative he rushed at her, pulled her hair and kicked her
black-stockinged legs. She did not cry. She made, at the moment,
no attempt at retaliation, but half an hour later she came up
behind him, pulled his head back, dug her sharp little fingers
into his neck and nearly throttled him. That was their only
physical contest, and she told him no more stories about
animals.

Once she gave him an account of the magic that people
practised in Sicily. You made a little doll of wax, stuck pins
into it, melted it on the fire. Then the person of whom you were
thinking died in great agony.

'Gosh! I don't care,' said Edward. 'You can't do anything to
me!'

Then she took out of her pocket a dirty little lump of wax
with two black pins for eyes.

'You wait and see,' she said, and, sure enough, next day he
had toothache. It was true that it was an old tooth that had
often given him trouble before. Nevertheless, there it was.

On the whole, however, they maintained a rather friendly
neutrality.

One thing disturbed him. He had always thought that his mother
knew everything. Now, very plainly, she did not. Lizzie knew many
things that his mother did not. One day he asked his mother where
Palermo was. She said it was in Corsica. He did not correct her
mistake but reflected on it.

He was very cross with Lizzie that evening and teased her
about cricket, of which she knew nothing at all. He said to her
with scorn: 'Why, you don't even know what a wicket-keeper is!'
and that night, when his mother came to say goodnight, he hugged
and kissed her with more than his ordinary ardour.

But, after this, he was puzzled. Coming home from school was
not quite as it had been--it was not so good and it was better.
When he was at school he surrendered altogether to the
school atmosphere. Life was very busy there; there was something
going on every minute of the time.

Until the last fortnight, however, he always, as he approached
his home, felt all the pleasures of the Westminster house close
him in. He was extremely happy at home. People left him alone, he
liked them all, was interested in a hundred things that went on
in the house, and, above all else, treasured his independence in
his own room, ruling his own kingdom.

He always knew every day what the house would be like, the
smell of the pot-pourri at the top of the first staircase, the
stutter and clangour of the old brass Georgian clock with the
face of a grinning sun, the view from the window on the second
floor--a square of small quiet street, a tree, a corner of the
church tower--all these things were his and he was theirs. This
was home as no other place ever would be all his life long.

But now they would be home no longer, for Uncle Nicholas and
Lizzie had changed all that. You never knew what Uncle Nicholas
would be at. He would stand in front of you making faces and
reciting a funny poem about two drunken sailors in a boat at sea,
or he would do a trick and take a ribbon out of your ear, or he
would say: 'Now--as man to man! What tricks have you been up to
to-day?' and would add: 'You can tell me, you know. I'm so
wicked myself that nothing that anyone else can do can shock
me.'

He made in some mysterious fashion the whole house different.
Even when you knew that he was out somewhere, you expected to see
him turning up in a doorway or from behind a curtain, smiling,
cheerful, and saying: 'Now then, out with it! Tell me your
secrets!'

He and Lizzie were so different from anyone else Edward
had ever known. They did not think the same things good and the
same things bad as other people did.

Of one or two acts Edward was deeply ashamed, although he
would not say that he was--as for instance when they had
teased Blake Minor because he had a sister called Lucy. They
called Blake Minor 'Lucy,' and Edward had made him cry because he
wrote 'Lucy' all over the front page of a calendar Blake had.

Edward had strutted about after doing this and had pretended
to be very proud, but he had not been proud really. After all, if
anyone laughed at Nell he'd give them one, and Blake was a silly
ass to cry. Nevertheless, Edward had been ashamed.

When, however, he told Uncle Nicholas this one day, Uncle
Nicholas had laughed, had said that there was nothing to be
ashamed of and that it did Blake Minor good. Then Uncle Nicholas
was wonderful at imitating people. He could imitate anyone and
especially Aunt Grace. Edward had always rather liked Aunt Grace.
Of course she was silly sometimes, especially when she had
one of those letters from the man in Winchester who was supposed
to be in love with her (fancy being in love with Aunt Grace!),
but although she was silly she was nice, would give you anything
she had, and was never out of temper.

But Uncle Nicholas imitated her. Gosh! he imitated her until
you had to laugh. He told Edward it was a secret between
themselves and, right before your eyes, he would seem to swell,
be all fat in front, and his eyes would stare just as Aunt
Grace's did, and he would say in that breathless foolish way that
Aunt Grace had: 'Yes, I've got a letter from John and he says the
weather in Winchester has been quite fine these last days, only
there was a thunderstorm last Thursday and I've found such
a pretty book for dear little Lizzie. I'm sure she'll love it--I
know I did when I was a girl . . .' all muddled up and catching
his breath with his hand on his heart. You could swear
that it was Aunt Grace! Edward must laugh, but at the same time
he felt uncomfortable, and when he was with Aunt Grace could not
look her in the face.

But this was the principal difference that Uncle Nicholas and
Lizzie had made--that they had brought into the house with them
the sights, sounds, smells of another world. Edward's imagination
was fed with all these things: hot, blazing streets, little dark
rooms where you ate strange dishes, long high staircases lit with
the cold radiance of the moon, hills that looked like spotted
animals, and beaches that stretched for miles above a sea as
purple as grapes and as green as a parrot. It must be fine to see
these countries, not to know where your next meal was coming
from, to carry a revolver in your pocket, to hear music and
dancing in the room above the street. Edward must travel. It was
absurd that Lizzie, who was not as old as he, should have seen
all these things while he himself had seen nothing at all.

The Westminster house was not so wonderful. It was filled with
old things that had been there for ever and ever. Perhaps, one
day, Edward would run off and join Uncle Nicholas somewhere. He
kept these things in his heart. He no longer told his mother
everything that was in his mind.

Romney, also, like his young brother, was finding his home not
what it had been three weeks earlier. He had been for a long time
finding life very queer and very difficult, but, unlike the
majority of his own generation, he kept his troubles to
himself--absolutely to himself, and it was not until a day early
in May that he talked to anyone about himself. Of all people the
confessor that he chose was his Uncle Matthew. The way of it was
this.

He had suffered a severe disappointment on that afternoon.
While he was sitting at his desk in the little room at the
Churchill Galleries someone told him that he was wanted on the
telephone. He knew who it must be--Harry Rait.

Sick with annoyance, hurt pride and a devastating sense of
loneliness, he said sharply:

'Why not?'

(He knew so well the way in which Harry, who was not
imaginative, paused while he summoned up excuses.)

'Why, you see, old man, it's like this. I'd forgotten all
about the Bromleys. Clean forgotten. I promised them weeks ago.
It's bridge, and you know what it is--if one doesn't go, one
ruins their whole evening and so--'

'Oh, all right,' Romney answered savagely and put down the
receiver. He hadn't intended to be savage. He hated to lose his
temper with Harry, simply because Harry didn't mind in the least
if he did, and he, Romney, hated to realize that Harry didn't
mind. Harry wouldn't mind now. Harry wouldn't care if he never
saw Romney again, and returning into the exhibition room, facing
the celebrated sculptures of M. Kaminski which everyone admired
and no one would buy, Romney swore, for the one hundred and
second time, that he didn't care if he never saw Harry
again either, and for the one hundred and second time knew that
it was a lie.

The sculptures of M. Kaminski were very fine indeed. There
were six--'Torso,' 'Woman Running,' 'Solar Plexus,' 'Bird in
Flight,' 'Rabbit,' and the vast accumulation 'Mother Earth' in
the middle of the room.

Romney looked at these and hated them, although but an hour
ago he had thought them magnificent. Behind them, on the walls,
were the flower-paintings of that promising young Frenchman, M.
Paul Fléhot.

Two young women were standing there lost in admiration.

'These are the sculptures of Kaminski?' the more elderly of
the young women enquired.

'Yes, Madam. And the flower-paintings are by
Fléhot.'

(Idiot! She was holding a catalogue. Why enquire?)

'Very fine! Magnificent! Don't you think so, Doris? They are
for sale, I suppose?'

'Of course, Madam.'

She gave the 'Torso' a prod.

'What is the name of this one?'

'Simply "Torso."'

'"Torso." How fine! Isn't it fine, Doris?'

'Absolutely divine, darling.'

'You should look,' Romney went on, 'at Fléhot's
paintings. Many people think him the finest young painter in
France. This one'--he pointed--'is especially magnificent. His
sense of colour is really superb. Those reds, those greens . .
.'

'Yes,' he was thinking, 'I'm damned if I'll bother with Harry
any more. He's always doing this kind of thing. And I'd ordered
the dinner.' He broke off. The woman was speaking.

'They are for sale, I suppose?'

'Oh yes, they are for sale.'

She turned to her friend.

'Doris, aren't they divine?'

'Simply divine, darling.'

He thought: 'It's only because I give in to him about
everything. If I stood up to him a bit . . .' But it wouldn't be
any use. If Romney stood up to Harry, Harry would simply fade
away. He wouldn't care. How to make him care? How to hurt him?
How to--?

'What's the name of that one?' the woman asked. 'I like that
one.'

'It's called "Chrysanthemums."'

'Oh, those are chrysanthemums, Doris, those are
chrysanthemums. Aren't they lovely?'

'Simply lovely. And I like that blue one over there. Don't you
like that blue one, darling?'

'Yes. Lovely. What's that blue one called?'

'Oh, that's called "Pansies."'

'Pansies! How darling!'

'. . . If only I could give him up,' he thought. 'If only, on
my way home to-night, I could say: "Well, that's the last time I
bother with him. After all, he doesn't care for me. Not a
bit."'

'Well, we must be going now,' the woman said. 'They're simply
too lovely.'

Marston came towards them and stopped them. Marston was so
very clever; he could make people buy the most unlikely things,
things that they didn't want and would for the rest of their
lives detest. Marston had all the qualities that Romney hadn't.
He was charming to everyone alike, he was never cross or put-out.
He had in fact no private life at all, but existed only for the
Churchill Galleries. His broad handsome figure, his smart, alert
walk (a little automatic, as though a screw were turned in
the back), his pleasant, easy, very English voice (so English
that you must especially believe that he was speaking the truth
when he praised foreign pictures)--all these things charmed
visitors, reassured them and made them in the end proud of
themselves (for he would say: 'Well, it's funny you should pick
that one out. Martigue himself thinks that's his best, but you're
the first one here to see how good it is.') He had all the gifts
that Romney lacked, but Romney had the taste. Marston had no
taste at all. He simply did not know one picture from another;
when a discerning visitor appeared it was Romney who dealt with
him. For Romney had a true flair. What is taste? Is there such a
thing? Only Time and Mr. Clive Bell can decide. But Romney knew
in his bones--somewhere in the middle of his spine--when pictures
and sculptures were alive and when they were not. Alive for him,
for him alone? Surely that says nothing? But his opinion was
shared by the Tasters. The happy men whose lives are occupied in
tasting different blends of tea know when tea is good. So the
Tasters of Art. Romney was a Taster by instinct.

To-day, however, he could taste nothing. Life was sour on the
tongue. He was going home.

'I'm off,' he said to Marston.

'Oh, I say--are you? It's early. Cardiff said he might be in
and buy one of the Fléhots.'

'Well, if he comes tell him Numbers Three, Nine and Fourteen
are the best. He doesn't know. But Number Nine is a beauty
really. Tell him it will be double its price one day. That will
fetch him.'

As he went out he put in his pocket a small wood-carving of a
young negress. It was tiny, but beautifully alive and made of a
lovely bronze-coloured wood (that gold bronze that is also
amber). It was carved by a young sculptress who, living in
Kingston, Jamaica, occasionally sent work to their
Galleries--work always original, brilliant and strong. She had
sent two or three large pieces and one or two of these small
figures.

She was not known yet in Europe, but she would be. He had
bought this for himself after it had been on show some six weeks.
He loved it. The wood glowed like metal, and the face of the
young negress, carved though it was in only a few lines, had in
its gaze something ardent, wondering, poignant.

As he passed into Leicester Square he felt that his personal
history had reached a crisis. Something must be done and done
immediately about a number of things, and especially about his
friendship with Rait. He had known Harry rather more than a year
now. He had met him first when a friend, Dick Armour, had invited
him to luncheon at the Junior Army and Navy. Unexpectedly Rait
had been there. Romney had at first resented it, for he had
wished to talk to Armour alone, but during the meal he had fallen
a victim to Harry's charm. What was his charm? Wherein did
it lie? For Romney it was at first perhaps that Harry was so
ordinary--Romney spent so much of his life with the eccentrics.
Harry was square, solid, monosyllabic, a proficient at games, a
stockbroker and a contemner of all the Arts. He was as
simple-minded as the bulldog that he kept in his rooms. He was
altogether a perfect hero for one of the more moving poems of J.
C. Squire. He was Georgian Poetry personified, splashing through
the mud of a country lane, cheering his side at a Rugby match,
smoking his pipe contentedly in a tempest of rain on an English
hillside and saying with kindly but patronizing assurance: 'What
you want to spend all your time mucking about with those bloody
pictures for, old boy, I can't imagine. But thank God all
this art means nothing to me,'

Very irritating, you might imagine. But not to Romney, for
Harry was free entirely from all those complicated obsessions,
that dim edgeless pessimism, that half-insane inanition, that
beset and befogged almost all of Romney's set. Harry asked no
questions of fate. Once assured that his digestion was working
properly, that he made money enough for his simple needs, that
his golf did not deteriorate, he was at peace with the world. He
was kindly, generous and never out of temper. He had bright blue
eyes, a ruddy complexion, and when he laughed he was a joy to
see. He was as yet a bachelor, but awaited the right girl with a
serene assurance. And when he married he would have three
children, would have a cottage near Sunningdale and as many dogs
as the cottage would hold.

That is the kind of man he was, and Romney loved him. Romney
was greatly disturbed about his own sexual nature. He had had as
yet no physical relationship with any women; he did not know what
it was to be in love with a woman. He knew, however, very well,
that he was not sexually abnormal. Everyone everywhere nowadays
spoke quite openly of these things. In his own set especially you
were considered to be intellectually superior if you had
somewhere a sexual twist. A number of men like Forrester,
Bancroft, Hudson, made no attempt to conceal their abnormality.
But Romney disliked the company of abnormal men and women. He
judged no one; he accepted the modern view that these were
matters of psychological and not moral decision. It was simply
that the sexually abnormal dwelt in a world that could not be
his. Their passions, their preoccupations, seemed to himself the
passions and preoccupations of maimed and defective people, as
though they lacked a limb or were deaf or blind. He would have
been truly sorry for them had they in any way needed his pity,
which it was evident that they did not. They were, on the whole,
he perceived, happy and contented with their lot and would not
change it if they could. He was as foreign to their world as
though they had been Chinese, having their own tongue, manners,
customs and traditions.

At the same time there was ever increasing in him a horror of
casual physical love. He felt this to be priggish and prudish. He
hid it from everyone, but he knew that his friends perceived it,
speculated about it. The loneliness that sprang from it was often
very bitter indeed. He had a romantic and obviously quite foolish
view of the possibilities of human relations. He could see that
very often people ruined their relationships with one another by
being greedy and possessive; also that views changed when the
novelty of physical passion died. Yet once and again he saw
magnificent human relationships, relationships that burnt
steadily with an inner flame. This glorious thing existed--then
why not for him?

He was not in love physically with Harry Rait, and yet it gave
him physical satisfaction to be with him, to see him move, smile,
speak. This came, he fancied, from a kind of deep hero-worship,
hero-worship not so much of Harry in person as of the things for
which Harry stood--his courage, imperturbability, kindliness,
common sense. The more he saw of him the happier he was to be
with him and the more thoroughly he realised that for Harry this
was an ordinary casual friendship, that Harry could not conceive
that men should have emotional feelings for one another, and that
he would be dumb with disgust did anyone suggest it. And yet at
this time Romney's love for and admiration of Rait was the
mainspring of all his finer feeling, it was mixed in with his
passion for art, his love of his family and even, dimly, his
apprehension of God.

For here were the other two emotions that separated Romney
from the set in which he lived. The three things that Romney's
friends most thoroughly despised were family relationships,
religious beliefs and patriotism. They had good reasons for their
scorn of all these things and were quite fair and temperate in
their attitude. Almost without exception they regarded their
parents as poor, stupid old muddlers who had made a mess of life
not only for themselves but also for everyone else.

Only the other evening at a cocktail-party at Ben Johnson's,
Peggy Furnival had declared: 'Well, would you believe it?--mother
actually tried to insist on my staying in. She said I'd promised.
Of course I'd done nothing of the kind, and as I explained to her
I never could have promised to be in at one of the family
dinners. They are simply too awful for words! She got quite
excited and talked of all that I owed to her and father. "Well,
really, mother," I said, "did I ask to be brought into the world?
I'm here simply because you and father were in love with one
another. You've brought me into a world that's a complete mess,
and a mess that your generation have made." I didn't want to be
unkind. They really are pets both of them, but this idea
that we owe them something--it's really too fantastic!'

Romney knew well enough that everyone did not feel like
this--there were exceptions--but, looking around him, it
was difficult to find anywhere a family that was a family.
Often enough it was the fault of the parents. Women like Mrs.
Montague, who was fifty if she was a day, dressing to look
younger than her daughters, and old men like Clay Robinson, a
grandfather if you please, chasing young girls about London quite
notoriously.

But nowhere did Romney see any family devoted in the way that
his family was devoted. He did not know whether in their case it
was family feeling, for he was sure that if anywhere he
had met them--his mother, his father, a girl like Nell, a boy
like Edward--he must have thought them delightful. His mother of
course belonged to her own time and generation. She said silly
things sometimes, she was impulsive, but where in the whole of
London would you discover anyone so warm-hearted, so touchingly
honest, so generous-natured? They were all bound together by a
deep emotion of trust and confidence. They liked to be together.
They looked forward to the evening when they would, all of them,
warm and cosy inside the Westminster house, share their
experiences. Why should this be so unusual a phenomenon? Even
Uncle Nicholas plainly thought it very odd and, because he
thought it odd, Romney began himself to question it--for Uncle
Nicholas was a jolly, fair-minded man of the world who had seen
more of life than they had.

Finally there was Romney's apprehension of God. This was the
most doubtful of all his emotions, for, in truth, he could be
sure of none of it. Among his friends there were two Roman
Catholics--Wilfred de Cordova and Larry Whyte. These two believed
in and practised their religion.

But for the rest--and outside his own family--he had not a
friend in London who had not, entirely and completely, discarded
the old absurd notion of a God, a First Cause or whatever you
pleased to call it. One or two of them quite frankly regretted
that it was no longer possible for a sane human being to believe
in anything at all.

'It must have been jolly in the old days when you thought that
someone was looking after you and that, if you were good
enough--even at the very last moment--you were in for a splendid
Eternity.'

They did not give themselves airs because they were wiser than
their grandfathers, but Romney noticed that their stern and
fatalistic conclusions were, as a rule, founded on very little.
The vastness of the planetary system, the waste and ruin of the
late War, some catch-phrases and a sort of very genuine personal
humility--as though each one said: 'Well, I'm not very much
myself--an unimportant arrangement of chemical matter. It would
be really too arrogant of me to presuppose an immortality for
myself. And if there is a God, well, then, He must be
pretty ashamed of Himself by this time.'

Romney did not know why it was that he had this persistent
sense of religion. It certainly did not come from any family
influence. He loved his mother, but her childish beliefs seemed
to him too simple for words. Uncle Matthew was the religious
member of the family, but Romney had never had with him an
intimate talk about anything. Uncle Matthew led a life quite
apart from the rest of them. He was a dear old boy, never out of
temper, generous to a fault, but he had his own life absolutely,
visited by his own friends (and queer enough some of them
looked!), and subject, it was said, to dreams and visions that,
although they did no harm to anyone, certainly marked him out as
not quite right in his head.

No, Romney was not a visionary. He was quite practical; he did
not believe in visions. It was simply that there was something
within himself that would not let him alone. 'Indigestion, old
boy,' Harry Rait would say. 'What you want is a pill.'

As he walked out into Leicester Square he felt, with every
step more strongly, that he had arrived at a crisis and that
something must be done about it. Something must be done about his
loneliness; he could not go on as he was any longer. Then,
stopping to light a cigarette, he wondered with a sharp stroke of
perception that was almost like a revelation, whether it were not
his Uncle Nicholas who had roused him to this sense of urgency.
He had not as yet had much talk with Uncle Nicholas, but he had
listened to him, he had watched him and, quite beyond question,
he had been influenced by him. Uncle Nicholas seemed to have an
answer to everything--yes, and a sensible answer too. It was not
that he was dogmatic. He spoke always with a laugh and an airy
wave of the hand, as much as to say: 'This is only the conclusion
I've come to. There may be nothing in it. Don't think I'm judging
anybody.'

This was, to Romney, what was so exciting about Uncle
Nicholas--that with all his knowledge of the world (he had
travelled everywhere), with all his wide interests (there was
almost nothing in which he was not interested), he never
dogmatized. He offered an opinion, drew a picture, related an
anecdote and left you to draw your own conclusions.

He deferred to you in your own subject (absurd really the
humble fashion in which he listened to Romney about pictures, or
to the Old Lady when she was anecdotal about her youth), was
surely the least conceited man in the world. Nevertheless,
already Romney was aware that many things were absurd to Uncle
Nicholas, most things perhaps. He did not believe, Romney was
sure, in Family Life, in God, in Patriotism. And yet he was wise
and kind. He would not laugh in your face whatever your opinions
were. Somehow, since his arrival, the house was changed.
Something was happening. Romney, very sensitive to atmosphere,
was pulled in two opposite directions:

'I don't want any change. We were very happy as we were.'

And then:

'Something is coming. Events are preparing. Life will never be
the same again as it was before he came.'

Looking up, startled by his sudden apprehension of some hidden
drama, he was aware of how lovely a face London was wearing at
that moment. The space of brick and mortar between Leicester
Square and Piccadilly Circus is a very mysterious one: it is hard
to believe that it was not always so. Only yesterday--if, taking
Time as we should, we greet the Neanderthal Man as our
brother--when the swamp oozed and sputtered under the thick dank
boskage of the overgrowth--it was at this spot that the light was
dim, that the coils and intercoils of tangled fibre hung lowest
over the sullen stinking slime. Neanderthal Brother, brutish of
jaw, sly of winking gaze, paused here, apprehending his enemy,
before he paddled forward to find his kill. And now, leaving the
Shakespeare statue and the click of billiard-balls and the new
garish Palace of Pleasure to guard the Square, you slip, for a
brief moment, into a no-man's-land where all peoples of the world
may meet, regardless of caste, of financial status, of home or
country. Beyond you gleams the Circus and beyond that are the
dusky sheep of the Green Park; here are the ghosts of a Society
for ever vanished and the lonely sheet of sky that like a wall,
of steel, of woolly fleece, of bird's-feather blue, of a raging
fiery sunset, is independent of social change, does not care that
there are shops now where once there was Elegance, that will
guard this little space with the same beauty, the same
immortality long, long after the little stir of humanity has died
into silence.

So, pausing for a moment outside the Prince of Wales's
Theatre, Romney beheld London transmuted. Above the Lyons' Corner
House the sky splashed its blue with waves of rose, recklessly
splendid, while beneath it hither and thither figures hurried and
paused, the traffic murmured like a beaten drum, and in the air
there was a confused gentle breath of petrol, of tobacco, of
flowers and, at the last, simply the London breath--London
quietly resolving to be London although they might turn her
ancient courts into shrill parlours of coconut-shy and Peeping
Tom cabinets, and plaster flaring portraits of nude abandoned
houris on the bosom of her theatres.

Everything was transmuted. Gold dust was in the air. May had
come with carnations and starry evening skies and the first beat
among the vegetable-stalks of the Prelude to the
Meistersinger.

It would be a lovely evening--not so lovely as that spring
evening weeks ago when he had walked from the Galleries as though
he were stepping into a new world--the very evening, he
remembered, of Uncle Nicholas' arrival--that evening he
would never forget--but lovely as the first May evenings in
London are always lovely, promising, reassuring, consoling the
doubting human heart.

He took off his hat and looked up. 'What we want,' he thought,
'is to believe in ourselves more. We have despised one another
for long enough. There's a new time of confidence coming.'

Three men and a perfect lady almost knocked him down. He
apologized. 'Star-gazing,' said the lady.

It was at that moment, as he approached the Circus, with the
Pavilion's cinematographic entertainment bidding him enter, that
he determined that he would speak to Uncle Matthew. At once. He
would find out what Uncle Matthew thought of all this. He had
walked a little out of his way. He turned down the Haymarket, his
face set towards Westminster.

Letting himself in, proceeding quietly upstairs, he passed an
old man with a white beard. He had seen this old man before. He
was one of Uncle Matthew's friends. A very quiet old man, whose
step made no sound, with very bright blue eyes and clean but
shabby garments. The old man bowed, murmured 'Good evening' and
passed down into the hall where the maid was waiting to let him
out. Romney went into his room, took the little negress from his
pocket and placed her reverently on his table, then turned and
went up to Uncle Matthew's room.

Outside his own door he almost stepped on to Becky Sharp, the
cat. She seemed, he had noticed, to have the power, like certain
birds and lizards and snakes, to change into the colour of the
background against which she stood. Not that she was not always
black, and black with a shining intensity, but with the blackness
she was also at times invisible, invisible except for the intense
watchfulness of her green eyes.

Now he almost fell over her, but she bore him no malice, only
walked quietly beside him, along the passage to Uncle Matthew's
door. There, when he paused, she paused too and looked at him
curiously and, he could have sworn, scornfully--as much as to
say: 'You surely are not going in there, are you?' When
she saw that it really was so she walked, with quiet purpose,
away.

He knocked on the door. How very odd, he thought! In all these
years I've never entered this room except to ask a question or
deliver a message--never with any intention of staying there. It
was strange how, in this house, they all had their own quarters
to which on the whole they obstinately kept. Was it Uncle
Nicholas now who was drawing them together?

He heard Uncle Matthew's voice bidding him enter.

He knew the look of the room of course. It was wide and high
and books ran to the ceiling on all sides of it. There was only
one picture--a large copy in colour of Leonardo's 'Virgin of the
Rocks' that hung between the two windows. Romney disapproved, of
course, of all copies in colour, but of this which Uncle Matthew
had bought in Dresden he had to admit that the dim green shadows,
the pale, lovely face of the Virgin, had in themselves a real
beauty which the whole room reflected.

In the centre of the room was a table covered with a deep blue
cloth. On the cloth was a plain white bowl. On the mantelpiece
was a fat round tobacco-jar. Uncle Matthew was sitting in an
armchair reading.

When he saw who his visitor was he smiled:

'Why, Romney!' he said. 'What can I do for you?'

Romney was shy. They were all, when it came to it, shy of
Matthew because he lived quite definitely in another world than
theirs. He had never bothered any of them with the slightest hint
as to what that world might be like; he had never shown the
slightest wish to lead any of them into it. But they were all
well aware that his life was full, active and exceedingly
interesting. He had the look, in spite of his quiet ways and his
indifference to speech, the calm of a man who is always happily
occupied. He could say a sharp thing sometimes too. He might be a
saint, but he was not meek. He might love all mankind, but that
was not to say that he suffered fools gladly.

Romney sat down and filled his pipe. He did not know how to
begin. Matthew helped him.

'Do you know?--this is the first time in all these years that
you've come in for a talk. I've often wanted you to. I even knew
that you would one day, but I wasn't going to press you. We're
all free in this house.'

'I didn't think,' said Romney, 'that you'd want to be bored
with me.'

'That's very modest.'

'No, I don't mean it modestly.' Romney hesitated. 'I don't
mean that I'm not worth talking to. No one thinks that of
themselves really, do they?'

'Oh yes--some people do,' Matthew said. 'Well--not my
friends anyway. What I meant was that you've always seemed so
settled in your life--as though you'd made up your mind about
everything; and I've made up my mind about nothing.'

'About nothing?' said Matthew. 'No, nothing at all. I'm
influenced by everything that comes along. Six months ago I read
Lawrence's Plumed Serpent and it seemed to me the most
marvellous thing ever. Then I read someone's book about him and
he was awful--so self-centred, always squealing, false to his
friends--and I didn't want ever to read anything about him or by
him again. So it always is. I can't find anything to hang on
to.'

'And so you thought you'd come and see if I had anything?'

'Yes, in a way. It was like this. I was coming from the
office. The sky was lovely. I'd just bought a little
wood-carving. I was excited and dissatisfied. I'd just had a
great disappointment. I thought I'd come and ask you some
questions.'

Matthew looked at him with great affection.

'Fire away then.'

Romney smiled. 'I like this. I like this room and everything.
Why haven't I been in here before? The first thing is about
myself. My disappointment this afternoon was because a friend of
mine wouldn't go out with me this evening after he had said that
he would. That isn't very serious, is it? But in a way it is,
because it showed me how awfully fond of him I am. Almost as
though he were a woman. And that's what worried me. Because I've
never been in love with a woman, and I care for this man so much.
I was wondering whether I were homosexual. But I know I'm not
because I'm uncomfortable with men who are. I would hate to
be--not because I think they can help it, but because--oh! I
don't know--because I want to be sane, square in the middle of
life. It's a handicap to be abnormal. Everything is twisted. Why
don't I fall in love? Why do I mind so much when this man chucks
me?'

Matthew struck a match and relit a pipe. Bending over it he
said:

'I shouldn't worry. You've got plenty of time. People talk and
write too much about these things. You're normal all right, but
we're all a mixture and different people rouse different emotions
in us. I expect you're a bit idealistic.'

'That sounds priggish,' Romney said. 'But I think a lot of my
generation are like me. Girls aren't as romantic as they were.
They are too close. They don't hide anything. We want love to be
something rare, a little out of our reach. Friendship seems rarer
than sexual love sometimes.'

'What's this friend of yours like?'

'Oh, he's absolutely ordinary. He cares for none of the things
I care for. I'm fond of him, because he's so steady and safe. I
like to be with him, to be near him. I don't think there's
anything physical in that, and yet I was sick with disappointment
this afternoon. He doesn't care a bit for me as I do for him. I
know that. And yet I cheat myself, I want him to need me. But he
doesn't. If I died to-night he wouldn't care.'

'I had a friend once,' Matthew said, 'for whom I felt like
that. And yet I'm normal enough. I think we divide love up too
much. Love whom you will but keep the quality fine. There are
lots of different ways of doing that. But you can't mistake it.
If the fineness is there, you'll know it. If it isn't there, drop
it. Be your own judge.' He crossed his legs. 'Don't expect too
much of anyone else. Expect a lot of yourself though. And don't
be too solemn about yourself--which I expect you're inclined to
be. We're all very comic--very comic indeed.'

'Yes. I know we are. But if you think yourself very
comic you don't have much confidence about the things you try to
do. You know--sometimes I go to a restaurant with friends and I
suddenly see myself in a glass and I think I'm too awful for
anything. Eyebrows and a nose and a slit of a mouth. I'm so tired
of it. I've seen it so often. Then I sell a picture to someone
and I think I'm grand.'

Matthew was so clean and fresh, Romney thought. It's as though
I'm seeing him for the first time. And this room for the first
time. Matthew was wearing a bow tie of light grey with white
spots. The sharp ends of his collar gleamed with an intense
whiteness. He was so quiet and friendly and restful. They looked
across at one another smiling.

'Well, what's the next thing?' asked Matthew.

'The next thing is connected with the last thing. Except for
this man there's been nobody who mattered to me except all of
us--the family, I mean. We've grown up taking it for granted, our
loving one another, being so happy together. I've never thought
it odd that I should love mother and father and Nell and Edward.
Or,' he went on, smiling, 'that we should have uncles and aunts
in the house and like them to be there. Well, suddenly, in these
last few weeks I've realized that what we have hardly anyone else
has got any more. Or at any rate all the intelligent people now
think the family's a mistake and a danger like nationalism. All
in a moment I've realized that I might lose this--that it might
be broken up, that something would come and tell us we're all
silly to believe in one another, to care for one another. You
see, if I were to lose my friend and the family--if I
suddenly thought mother silly and father lazy and our evenings
together a bore--why, then I'd have nothing left at all.'

'Why should you?' said Matthew. 'After all, your mother
isn't silly and we do all care for one another. It's
something real that holds our family together. If it's
real it can't be unreal.'

'No--but what's real or unreal? Isn't it the way we look at
it? There are so many ways of looking at things. Your way, for
instance, and Uncle Nicholas's.'

'Ah, yes--Nicholas.'

'It's since he came that I've felt so unsettled. Some of the
things I've thought fine I'm not so sure of when he's there. It's
almost as though there'd been a little earthquake in the house
and all the things that you had believed to be steady had rocked
for a moment.'

Romney looked at his uncle.

'You don't like Uncle Nicholas, do you?'

'Why should you think that?'

'Oh, one can feel it. And Uncle Nicholas feels it too. He's
never quite at his ease when you're there. You're the only one of
us who doesn't.'

'It isn't dislike,' Matthew said. 'It's only that we don't
believe in the same things.'

'You know,' Romney went on, 'in the drawing-room the other
night after dinner it was almost a battle between you. You didn't
say anything, but the room was full of it. The house isn't quiet
any more. Events happen underground. The other night at dinner
mother said something that I thought silly and I snapped at her.
I wouldn't have dreamt of doing that two months ago. I saw that
she was hurt. I was awfully ashamed of it.'

Matthew said not a word.

'Perhaps it's because everything's changing just now,' Romney
went on. 'It's like going downhill in a car when the brakes won't
act. Somebody whispers in your ear: "You're rushing into chaos
whether you like it or no." But we ought to have more power,
oughtn't we, Uncle Matthew? Not only over events but over
ourselves. Chaos itself oughtn't to matter if we're sure of
ourselves. And I'd like to fight to keep us together. Whatever
happens, nothing can separate us. That's what I'd like to
say. But I'm so weak. I don't respect myself. I don't find
anything I can believe in except beautiful things like pictures
and music, and even they are changing their values all the
time.

'But to-night when I felt my friend had chucked me and that we
were all different at home, it was as though I had no ground for
my feet. Between Leicester Square and Piccadilly it was as though
I were standing on a swamp. I hope you don't think I'm talking
awful nonsense, Uncle Matthew.'

'No, of course not.'

'And so I thought I'd come and ask you--why, when everyone
else is so uncertain, you're so sure and so happy. . . . It's
your religion, I suppose?' he added more timidly.

There was a pause. Then Matthew said:

'Do you think I'm happy? I suppose I am. If I am it's because
I don't think about myself much any more. Oh, well . . . think!
If I had the toothache I'd think all right. But I don't think how
I am, whether I'm happy or not.'

'Why don't you? It must be wonderful not to bother.'

'Oh, because there are other things more important. That's a
priggish answer, isn't it? Very noble and all that. It isn't
noble. It's simply what's happened to me--that for a long time
now I've lived in another world where the values are
different.'

'You mean religion--God?'

'Not religion certainly--but God, yes.' He broke off. 'Look
here, Romney,' he said at last. 'Do you really want to talk about
these things? There's nothing more interesting if you are
interested, nothing more boring if you aren't.'

'Of course I want to talk about them. That's what I came here
for.'

'Yes, but I hate to preach. I don't particularly want to make
you better, you know. Or make anyone better. What's good for one
isn't good for another. Propaganda's awful--or props of any kind.
All that anyone's got to do is to find out what's true for
himself. Your own truth. That's your job. I'll tell you what I've
found out to be true for myself if you like, but that doesn't
mean that it's true for anyone else.'

'Oh no,' Romney said eagerly. 'That's just what I want to
hear--how you've discovered something to be true and what that
something is.'

How quiet this room is, he thought, and how beautiful! The
ground's steady. It's been rocking under my feet for weeks.

'Look here,' Matthew said. 'It will be time to dress soon.
We'll talk another evening for as along as you like.'

Romney saw that he was shy, that he had suddenly closed in
upon himself as the petals of a flower close. But he was
determined to get some kind of answer before he left the room. He
felt as though, if he went away now, he would never return and an
irreparable chance be lost.

'No,' he said. 'I want just to hear from you what you've
discovered. Then we'll talk another time if you'll let me.'

'I haven't discovered anything,' Matthew said. 'Or at least
only one thing. I discovered some years ago that for me it was
wiser always to be ready--waiting to receive--rather than to go
out and try to take what I thought I ought to have. To let it
come to me rather than that I should go to it.'

'To let what come to you?'

'God if you like. The other life. The life inside. The
immortal life.'

'Why do you harp on this happiness?' Matthew said, smiling.
'That isn't the point. The point is that you should let the tree
have plenty of light and air and good soil.'

'What tree?'

'Confucius called it the Tree of Heaven. That's as good as
another. Look here! I knew that we should get like this--loose
and symbolic. I'll give you a fact or two. Nietzsche says
somewhere that life's either wrestling or dancing. That's partly
true. But there's a third way--waiting to receive what comes to
you and then cherishing it. Twenty years ago, in 1912, I was in
love, passionately, desperately in love with a married woman.
It's a commonplace little story. She also was in love with me. I
wanted her to leave her husband, and she, quite rightly, would
not. We parted. Life seemed altogether over for me--empty,
useless. Then one evening I came into my room--I wasn't living
here then--and it seemed to me as though I had a visitor. Oh, I
didn't see anyone--but I felt as though someone were
talking to me. After that it was as though a seed had been
planted inside me. A new life began, timidly, shyly, to grow. I
didn't want it. I was as cynical about it as Nicholas could ever
be. I tried to disregard it, but it wouldn't be disregarded.
Things that had been important seemed important no longer. I
began to see things that I had never seen before. It was as
though I had been shown the existence of a whole continent--yes,
a world inside this other one--inside or outside, around it,
intermingling with it. And the things of this world, its laws,
its scale of values, its beauties have become increasingly real
to me as I've grown older. This tree, this world, this life--I
don't want to be pretentious about it. I wouldn't argue from my
experience of it that there's life after death or that it is what
men mean by religion. I only know that it's real to me, now, at
this moment. It's so real that the material world is often
unreal--unreal in its detail, I mean. I suppose it would be
simpler to say that I have an inner life and that it is more
active than the outer one.' He laughed. 'My dear boy, don't think
that all the material things aren't real too. I love my food and
my friends and some work I do (although you didn't know it, did
you?) and theatres and the country and all of us in this house.
The two lives intermingle. They are one and the same life. One
enriches the other.'

Romney said: 'You're awfully lucky. To have that, I mean. If
one hasn't got it one can't pretend.'

'No, of course not. All you can do is to wait and see what
happens. Not to demand anything, but also not to miss a chance,
not to close yourself up. Not to say that anything is
nonsense.'

But Romney secretly was disappointed. He had thought that
there would be more than this--it was all so vague and
formless.

'Then you wouldn't call it a religion?' he asked.

'Oh no, not a religion, simply an experience. As though I'd
walked down a country lane and met someone who took me to a
beautiful place and invited me to stay there.'

'And it's changed your life?'

'Well, of course. Everything and everyone I come into contact
with changes my life. So of course this has done. Many things and
people are valuable now. I wouldn't even have seen them once.
Many things are unimportant now that once would have worried me.
This other world is created in love. That doesn't mean, you
know,' he went on, laughing, 'that I love everyone, never lose my
temper, never have indigestion any more or am peevish if I do
have it. Indeed no, I'm a very imperfect citizen of that world,
but I know the qualities that make it. It's like learning
Chinese. Slowly, I'm picking up the characters.'

'Do you know other people who have had your experience?'
Romney asked.

'Oh yes. Gradually we meet one another. One here, another
there.'

'Then it has no dogmas, no sect, no name?'

'All dogmas are right if they feed the Tree. Every man must
find his own--the one that suits him.'

Romney moved restlessly in his chair.

'Uncle Matthew--don't think me rude--but most people
to-day--most people of my generation anyway--would think it most
awful nonsense. All imagined by yourself, I mean.'

'Of course they would,' Matthew said. 'If they haven't
experienced it. And it's right they should if that's what they
honestly think. The only thing they can't do is to take it away.
I'll give it any name that pleases you. I'll say that I believe
in God as a beneficent power--I'll say that Christ was the one
perfect citizen of this world that the other, the outside world,
has ever known. I'll say that once you are aware of this life in
you, you can't deny it, you can't do anything but live it. But
I'll say, most of all, that you must keep yourself open, let it
flow into you, let it work on you as it will. And I'll say that
it's a definite practical experience, that once you've known it,
you can't deny it any more than you can deny a voyage to South
Africa if you've been there.'

'Are there any rules,' said Romney, 'that you have to obey? Do
you say prayers? Do you go to any kind of church?'

'Rules? Not rules so much as values. Some things are better
than others. Charity is better than meanness, love than hatred,
self-forgetfulness than egotism, cheerfulness than grumbling,
attention than chatter, humour than pomposity--and always to lose
yourself in something larger than yourself. Prayer? No,
conversation rather. You have a constant friend. You talk
together. Churches? All and every Church. All and every place.
There are no exclusions--'

He shook his head.

'There you are! You asked me. There's no miracle, no
revelation. I'm no priest or prophet.'

They were silent. The last lights of the May evening thinned
the leaves of the trees beyond the window so that they were
fragments of shadowed gold against a sky white with radiance. The
room was dark. Romney sighed.

'I can only repeat,' he said, 'that you're lucky. Perhaps I'll
be lucky too one day.'

Now it so happened that, at the very moment when Romney and
Matthew mentioned his name, Nicholas was standing in the passage
outside Matthew's room. He was standing, a smile on his lips, a
wine-coloured carnation in his hand, and he was humming a song
from The Cat and the Fiddle.

He smiled because he felt happy, the wine-coloured carnation
he had stolen from a vase in the drawing-room, and he was humming
for the same reason that he smiled.

He was standing in the passage outside Matthew's room because
he was not sure what his next move would be. As a matter of fact,
his next move was to be a very important one, trivial though at
the time it seemed. But he did not know that.

He sometimes halted thus in the middle of the house, listening
to its beating heart--the stirring of the clocks, the breeze
behind a curtain, a step muffled by walls, someone singing. And
when he halted thus he pleased himself with the fancy that he had
only to move this or this to set all the patterns changing. There
they were, behind their different doors, waiting for him to move
the game on a stage further--as a chess master's hand may hover
over the board.

He believed immensely in his powers. He was, in fact, a most
amiable self-satisfied man--amiable because self-satisfied.

And he was especially amiable and therefore especially ready
for good-natured mischief this afternoon, because he had won at
'The Young Bachelors' ten pounds after some excellent games of
Contract. 'The Young Bachelors' was an obscure little club in
Rupert Street that existed only for gambling purposes. It was
exactly what Nicholas required, for it was obscure, on the whole
honest, and all of its members, save one or two, played games
less well than Nicholas played them. He was glad that, on the
whole, it was honest, for he preferred to win by natural talent.
If, on the other hand, unnatural talents were called for, well,
he could do his share. But he saw himself making a very pretty
little income at 'The Young Bachelors' for a long time to
come.

Now he was not sure what he would do. Should he have a serious
conversation with Lizzie, or be kind and teasing to Fanny, or
read some chapters of the Maurice novel in his room, or write a
letter to Speranza Portugales, to whom he had now written half a
dozen and received no answer from her? (But soon she would
succumb and receive him back again. After all she had really
given him the bracelet. She had said carelessly, 'You can
have it if you want to,' or, if those had not been exactly
her words, they were so near as not to matter. And then once she
had given it to him it was surely his to sell if he wanted
to?)

What should he do during this hour before dressing-time? He
realized then that he was standing outside his brother Matthew's
room. Should he go in and tease him for a bit? But he was
not quite sure about teasing Matthew. Matthew was the one
member of the family whom he had never liked. He was the only
member of the family he didn't like now!

He recalled how, when they were children, he and a big boy
from over the way had stripped Matthew of his clothes and shut
him up in the coal-shed. He had escaped later and, besmeared with
coal, had walked, quite naked, through the house up to his room.
He had not been shy, ashamed or irritated. He had been seen by
some female guest walking up the stairs. That had not disturbed
him either. Very aggravating. 'I don't believe I'd be what I am
if it weren't for Matthew,' Nicholas thought. That was perhaps
unfair, for they had gone to different schools. Their lives had
been always separate. But Matthew was the one and only human
being whom Nicholas could not charm. No, he could not!

'Dear old Matthew,' Nicholas thought. 'What a ghastly prig!
He's in there now talking religion to someone, I wouldn't mind
betting.' He little knew how accurate he was!

So, jingling his money in his trouser-pocket, he moved away.
He would chatter to Lizzie (from whom he wished to learn a number
of things), read his novel, dress slowly. He understood that
there was a dinner-party to-night, a little dinner-party with
some bridge afterwards. He would, almost certainly, win a few
more shillings before the end of the evening.

Then he paused, because he nearly fell over the cat. He had
not seen it. He cursed it pleasantly, but Becky Sharp liked him
and, purring, rubbed against his trouser. She had a purr like the
beating of a baby drum in a baby jungle--muffled and important.
So, pausing, he saw that the door on his right was ajar.
Inquisitive as ever he peeped in. It was Grace's room and there
she was, sitting at a table in the window busily writing.

He liked Grace best of all the family, for Grace adored him,
and he loved to be adored. She had always worshipped him, had
slaved for him when they were children, had never looked for any
rewards, and now, on his return after so many years, had at once
surrendered to him again, wanting to run messages for him, to
serve him in any way, protesting indignantly if he were
criticized, laughing at his jokes whether she understood them or
no.

Poor old Grace! He would do anything for her in reason. He
recited wicked poems to her (and she had no idea that they were
wicked), entertained her with incredible stories about the West
Indies and Italy, kissed her and teased her and made her life, as
she confided to Fanny, one long, bright holiday.

Peering through the door, he wondered what it was that she
could be doing. She was completely absorbed, huddled up in her
chair, leaning forward, her stout, shapeless figure hugging
itself. She was writing furiously.

He walked in, softly crossed her room, stood behind her, then,
with a laugh, put out his hands and covered her eyes.

He took his hands away. 'Yes, Nicholas it is. It's cheek my
coming into your room like this, isn't it?'

'Oh no--you can.'

His curiosity had realized that at once she had covered, with
her hand, the paper on which she was writing. There were other
sheets and these too she drew in to the shelter of her purple
blotting-book. She was writing a letter. But to whom? There was a
mystery here.

'Oh, was it open? I'm sure I didn't know, but I'm always doing
things like that, and I've been shopping with Fanny. It's such a
lovely afternoon and I've got something for Lizzie that I'm sure
she'll simply love.'

He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her with his
quizzical good-humoured patronage.

'What on earth are you doing writing so intensely like that
all by yourself, you funny old thing? One would think that you
were writing a love-letter.'

He saw at once that his random shot was correct. She
had been writing a love-letter!

She blushed, laughed nervously and closed her fat hand even
more firmly on the mysterious sheet of paper. Nicholas had heard,
of course, that Grace cherished an attendant gentleman somewhere
in the country. Grace herself quite often made allusions to him.
None of the family had ever seen him. Grace had met him several
years ago when on a holiday in Bonchurch. The splendid letters
that he wrote to her were her great joy. Nicholas of course
wished to see one of these letters. He was interested in
everything human, and the thought that dear Grace, middle-aged,
stout and foolish, had a lover was queer indeed and also,
although he would not admit to tenderness, rather touching. As he
looked at her now he had a memory of Grace, a little girl with a
flushed face and tousled hair, pushing into the hand of a small
ungracious boy who had come to tea a ring with a ruby (the fruits
of a cracker) and murmuring huskily: 'I want you to have
it!' Fanny and Grace! Foolish sentimental girls, foolish
sentimental women. . . .

'Writing a love-letter!' Grace murmured. 'Nicholas, how
absurd! You should know me better than that. Who would I write a
love-letter to?'

'Your enigmatic courtier in the provinces.'

'You're teasing me, but of course it does mean a lot to have
someone care for you at my age, and I must say that I'm properly
grateful, and sometimes on a lovely afternoon like this when
everyone is looking so bright in spite of the bad times--for they
really are awful, aren't they, and it looks as though there'd be
Mussolinis everywhere presently, and perhaps it would be the best
thing in this country after all--what I mean is, Nicholas, that
an old woman like me does want a friend to prevent her from being
lonely.'

'Nonsense, Grace--you're not old and you're not lonely.'

Nicholas leaned, lightly, on the back of her chair.

'Now this letter, for instance--what kind of things do you
write to him about?'

'Oh, little things--what I do and what people are talking
about and how everyone is--oh, dear! I don't know--you are
a tease, Nicholas!'

He noticed that one of the sheets had slipped from the purple
blotting-book. He pinched her ear, slowly, playfully drawing her
kind, flushed, excited face towards his.

She was always excited, poor Grace. Everything moved her to
extravagant emotion. She was excited now, greatly pleased that he
should be there, thinking it worth his while to spend his time
with her. Wonderful that he should be interested in her little
doings, the dazzling, brilliant, teasing Nicholas!

He looked over her shoulder, talking nonsense, smiling into
her eyes, and read these sentences:

'And so, darling, beloved Grace, you can understand that when
I took my customary walk after supper I was thinking so much of
you and wishing that you could be with me and help me to solve
some of my difficult problems . . .'

Darling, beloved Grace? But the letter was in Grace's
handwriting. It was this that she herself had written during the
last half-hour!

He stood back a little, still with his eyes on hers. Her
cheeks flushed a deeper crimson.

'Grace . . . you've been writing this love-letter to
yourself!'

'Oh, Nicholas!'

With a long-drawn sigh, her body trembling, she drew back from
him, never taking her eyes from his face. His smile, kindly,
teasing, affectionate, cynical, was steady, dominating. He had
her in his hands to do with as he would.

'And you won't tell anyone, none of the others? I'd die of
shame if they knew.'

'Tell them? Why, of course not. What sort of brother do you
think I am?'

He moved away and sat down on a small chair near the bed. He
leaned forward, nursing a knee with his elegant hands, looking at
her in the kindest, friendliest fashion. He had never, in all his
experiences, known anything so funny! Poor old Grace, sitting in
her bedroom writing love-letters to herself, imagining a lover,
deceiving the family. . . .

He said:

'But, my dear, whatever do you do it for? What fun do you get
out of it?'

'It isn't fun.' Her voice was timid, almost beseeching. 'No
one has ever been in love with me, not really, I mean, although
there was a Captain Barnett used to come here and he took me to
the theatre. He kissed me in the taxi. . . . Oh, that was years
ago, of course! And now, of course, no one ever will be in love
with me, and it seems so unfair. What I mean is, Nicholas, I
shall die without ever being made love to, and I didn't mean this
to go on when I began it. I just wrote one letter one evening
when I was feeling lonely, to keep myself company as it were, and
then it went on, and then . . .'

She broke off. She stared at him, her eyes now brimming with
tears. She was becoming, now, with every moment, more excited.
How often she had longed to tell someone of this--how impossible
that she ever should! And now Nicholas knew--what a fool he must
think her, and yet he looked at her with a kindly smile, he
seemed to understand! And oh! if he only did! How
wonderful for her to have a friend to whom she could sometimes
talk, someone sympathetic, comprehending . . . Words began to
pour from her.

'You see, Nicholas--no man could ever understand--but every
woman wants to be loved and to have children, doesn't she? Of
course I was never very good-looking and the people I cared for
never seemed to care much for me. And then there was God.'

'God?' asked Nicholas.

'Yes--always hanging over one--watching everything one did.
Oh, I know children don't believe that any more these days. They
don't believe anything, not Santa Claus nor fairy-tales nor a
single word you tell them. Look at your Lizzie! But they all did
when we were children. I couldn't tell even the whitest of
lies--and I used to tell lies sometimes because I was frightened
of Papa, although he was ever so kind, but when he was angry he
was so very angry. In any case--what was I saying?--oh
yes. God's Eye seemed to be everywhere, in the garden, down in
the tool-shed--do you remember at Moreton, Nicholas, when I
caught you there one day kissing Minnie Simmers and stood guard
for you ever so long outside and caught a cold which lasted for
weeks? Anyway, I was silly, I suppose, but there were both God
and Papa watching everything. Fanny was more venturesome. I've
always thought Fanny had a bit of the pagan in her, and you
remember that time when she went on with Lionel Holford, although
Papa didn't like it at all, and she didn't care a bit. I never
would have dared. I was always a fearful coward. But what I mean
is that if I hadn't been so afraid of God I might have had more
chances. Because men want you to go part of the way, don't they?
But I never dared. So here I am, an old maid writing letters to
herself. It's dreadfully silly, isn't it?'

She ended with a nervous, almost hysterical laugh, for she had
realized, quite suddenly, that she had put herself entirely in
Nicholas' power. If any of the others were ever to know--Romney
or Nell or Charles--oh! she would die of shame! She would throw
herself into the Thames! She put out a hand and timidly touched
Nicholas' sleeve.

'You won't breathe a word, Nicholas, will you? Please, please.
I should never be able to face any one of them again--and I am so
fond of them. I know how silly it is, and I should never have
told them that I had a friend. I've always known it was wrong,
but he's become quite real to me now. I know just what he's like
and how he lives. And there are times when I think that if I went
to Winchester there he'd be at the station--'

She broke off.

'Of course, dear Grace. I won't breathe a whisper. It shall be
our secret. No one in the world shall know. But can't you
find a real man to write to? I'm sure there are lots of
men who are as lonely as anything and would be only too glad to
get letters, such charming letters . . .'

She shook her head.

'I don't know. You'll think me very queer, Nicholas, but if it
was real there'd be sure to be something wrong. He'd want to meet
me perhaps, and then he'd be disappointed when he saw me, and
there might be something about him I didn't like--he'd have
purple veins in his nose or an irritating cough. You never can
tell about people, can you? Whereas now he's what I want him to
be and he's always the same, so very kind, with perfect manners.
. . . Oh dear! you'll be thinking me more foolish every
minute!'

But what he was thinking was: This is what comes of all
that pre-War humbug--all that nonsense about God, and women never
being allowed to look a man straight in the eye.

He had an instant of revolt, of disgust. For a moment he
positively hated this family--Matthew and his religion, Charles
and his wood-carving, Fanny and her domesticity, and this old
maid clutching her silly, sentimental letters. It was then, at
that instant, as he looked at Grace, at the pictures on the
wall--a view of Edinburgh Castle, 'Christ with His Parents in the
Temple,' a seascape of sand and waves under a yellow sun, the
innumerable photographs, the pincushions and toilet articles, a
pair of red faded bedroom slippers with dubious fur at the
edges--it was then that he had his first impulse of real
malevolence. He had a right to rob and plunder and disturb
these people, if he wished! Individually they were good, kind,
sentimental souls, but they stood for a life that he detested--a
sham, romantic, soppy, stupid Mumbo-Jumbo world! It would be good
for them all to learn how unreal and false they were! He kissed
Grace lightly on the cheek.

Fanny had one thing in common with her daughter Nell--that she
never could prevent happiness from breaking in. This was as it
should be with a pretty young girl like Nell, but it must, she
sometimes in these days reflected, irritate other people in a
middle-aged woman like herself. Middle-aged women, even in these
modern times, were always silly when they behaved like
children.

On this particular afternoon, however, she and Nell had so
greatly enjoyed their shopping, and the sun, and the bright
faces, the colours of bronze and rose and bright pale green, the
sunlight as it caught the silver of the motors and the glass of
the windows and the great patches of carnations and roses in the
baskets of the flower-sellers, that it was difficult not
to be happy.

And yet, as soon as they entered the Westminster house, some
of Fanny's happiness left her. It was late, but they would have a
cup of tea, and indeed the drawing-room, soaked in the May sun,
was empty.

Fanny sank into a chair.

'Where is everyone?' She pushed a bell. 'We'll have a cup of
tea even if it is late. Just as we are! How quiet the
house is! Where is everyone?'

(Yes, Matthew and Romney were together, and Grace and Nicholas
were together, and Charles was at his wood-carving, and the Old
Lady was asleep, Edward was cutting a picture of footballers out
of a paper, Lizzie was writing a letter.)

'Well, he's so conceited--just because he can do sums
in his head. And he has an eye like that damp blue bone that fish
have in railway-train meals.'

Very sweet she looks, Fanny thought, in that mouse-grey with
the dark red carnations. Such a child still and yet so very
modern. They were like sisters, and then like mother and
daughter, and then sometimes like complete strangers who found
one another's habits very odd.

'I must stop wanting to take my children in my arms and love
them,' Fanny thought. 'That stage is over.'

She and Nell had been at one all that afternoon and now they
were separated. She looked across at her daughter almost with
timidity. She had talked, as she did when she was happy, eagerly
and carelessly, unafraid that Nell would not understand. But now,
quite suddenly, she was afraid of everything. This dinner
to-night--Mrs. Pontifex was so very commanding. She always knew
what was right for everyone. And Claribel Birch who was so
beautiful and so discontented. She would make eyes at Nicholas,
at Romney--age meant nothing to her.

When Fanny was hostess in her own house she talked too much.
She knew that she did. She wanted, so badly, that everything
should go well. Those dreadful pauses that came, arising like
ugly monsters from under the dinner-table, pointing their fingers
at you! She ran in always to slaughter them, and then she could
see what Mrs. Pontifex was thinking. Often she did not care. She
had her family all about her. She was too happy to mind what
strangers thought. But to-night she would care.

She took off her hat and stroked her dark hair. She turned to
Nell, who was pouring out tea, and said:

'I talk too much, darling.'

'Talk too much?' said Nell.

'Yes, dear--oh, not with you and the others of course--but I
shall to-night. I feel it in my bones, and Nicholas will think it
a pity and the Pontifexes will discuss it going home. Oh dear!
I've been so self-conscious these last weeks. I never used to
be.'

Nell's attention was not yet fixed. She was thinking--I nearly
told mother about Hector this afternoon: would she have
understood? Would she have minded? Mother is such a darling. She
is always so determined that she will understand everything.
Sometimes we are just like sisters, and then she's a whole
generation away. I want to look after her, to protect her, to
shield her from everyone, and then she makes me feel shy. She
will wear such bright colours. She gets so enthusiastic. .
. .

'Oh, don't bother for once. You look tired. Let me arrange
those cushions. Lie back.' Nell came over and arranged the
cushions, then bent down and kissed her. As she did so she
thought of Mamie Pontifex who was always looking after her
mother, although you would think that Mrs. Pontifex never needed
to be looked after by anyone. Mamie, indeed, made a business of
it. It was as though she said: 'Everyone accuses my generation of
being unfilial. Well, they're wrong. Look at me!'

Fanny caught Nell's hand.

'Stay here a moment. I feel to-night as though I were losing
you--you and Romney and Edward.'

'Losing us!' said Nell, kneeling down and looking up into her
mother's face.

'Yes. Oh, well, of course I am in a way. I mustn't grumble.
You've all been sweet to me. Women have a hard time anyway. If
they have lovers they lose, and if they are domestic they
lose.'

'I suppose,' said Nell, sententiously, 'we all lose one way or
another.'

She stroked Nell's hair, which was very fair and curly. Nell
now had the face of a child. And yet she already knew so much
that Fanny would never know.

'Is it better, Nell, do you think, that all your generation
know so much so soon?'

'What--about men?'

'For one thing.'

'Yes, we can look after ourselves better than your generation
could.'

'But doesn't it make you hard sometimes and cynical?'

'No, I'm not cynical,' Nell said. 'The generation older than
mine was. They had the War to look back upon. We're looking
forward, and although the world is in the most awful mess--still,
there's all the more for us to put right.'

'And are you confident that you will?'

'Oh no, of course not. It will be right in some places and
wrong in others as it always has been. But there are some things
we can do.'

'As for instance?'

'Not be furtive about sex as you all were. Not be frightened
by things. Clear the slums away--oh, I don't know--lots of
things!'

'Are you happier, do you think,' asked Fanny, 'than we were as
girls?'

'No, I don't think so. But happiness isn't everything.'

'Yet you want other people to be happy.'

'Yes, I do.' Nell jumped up. 'Yes--I want everyone to be happy
one day and just and kind. But of course they won't be. Still,
one can try.'

She looked beautiful just then. Often she did not. Her face
was immensely expressive--as honest a face, Fanny thought
lovingly, as any in the world.

Fanny said: 'Kiss me again, Nell darling. Once more before I
go up to dress. Oh, I do wish we weren't having a party this
evening!'

And, in fact, at the very start there was a catastrophe--for
the soup was cold.

Fanny could not understand it. During all the years that Mrs.
Baldwin had been their cook the soup had never been once cold.
Mrs. Baldwin was famous for a number of things--for her temper,
her game leg, her green-tailed parrot (her husband had been, in
his life, a sailor, had brought her a parrot from Africa; she
said that death should not part her from it), her long-legged,
dishevelled son who, with a perpetual cold in the head, visited
her at certain times to demand money of her, her hatred of Becky
Sharp, whom she could not abide (Napoleon, the parrot, also
detested her). For all these things and many more she was
celebrated in the family, for she was a 'character,' as you could
see at once when you looked at her grey eye, her moustache, her
mountainous bosom, and listened to her game leg tapping out its
temper on the kitchen floor--but most of all was she celebrated
for her cooking. Fanny was afraid of her, even Janet was shy of
her. No one in this world was familiar with her. She was a
friendless woman and proud of it!

Nevertheless she could cook--she had the touch, the flair, the
jene sais quoi, the artist's certainty, the
epicure's arrogance, the Maskelyne magic. She could cook. For the
first time in her career the soup was cold.

But uneasiness had begun before that. Fanny, receiving the
Pontifexes and Claribel in the drawing-room, wondered, quite
suddenly, as though someone had whispered in her ear, whether her
bosom were not too bare and her dress too highly coloured. This
was the first time of wearing. How she had loved it when she had
seen it at Miss Fatima's! Watching the girl sway from side to
side it had seemed that the crimson velvet had a life of its
own.

It had seemed 'exactly the thing' upstairs, 'exactly the
thing' when she had gone in to kiss Edward good-night and he had
said: 'I say--that's grand!', 'exactly the thing' when
entering the drawing-room she had found Matthew and Grace there
and witnessed their approval (although Grace had no taste at all,
poor dear), 'exactly the thing' until Nicholas had come in and
then Claribel. Claribel was in black and had that tragic,
dishevelled appearance that so wonderfully became her. She looked
on these occasions like one of the women in the Rape of the
Sabines.

Fanny saw in an instant that Claribel thought the crimson
dress absurd, and then a moment later Nicholas confirmed it. Why?
How? By what movement or gesture? With Nicholas one never could
tell. He was very grand himself, sparkling and dashing and
all-conquering. One of the Romans perhaps, and with one glance at
him you could see that Claribel was sure of it.

And then Mary Pontifex was in black too, entering the room
like a general leading his army to certain victory--so that it
was disappointing to find that the army, when it arrived, was
only Bertie Pontifex, fat, placid, and, in some indefinable way,
superior to his dominating wife.

But why were they all in black to-night? Just to make
Fanny feel flamboyant you might suppose.

'Stunning dress you're wearing,' Bertie Pontifex said as they
went down to dinner, but that meant nothing, for Bertie always
paid compliments to women--just to show his independence of his
wife.

Fanny knew at once that the soup was cold, for she saw Mary
Pontifex raise a spoonful to her mouth, taste it, start, then
with determined politeness pursue the hard necessity. But, until
she tasted it herself, Fanny could not credit it. Mrs. Baldwin
and cold soup! But there it was--not to be denied. The soup had
that discouraging, shivering, vanished warmth about it that only
bad cooks know.

Fanny looked around her. No one else appeared to be suffering.
And then she caught a glance from Charles. He too was aware.

The salmon was all right and she breathed again. The strange
sense of impending calamity that had been hanging over her ever
since she had entered the house that afternoon lifted a little.
On one side of her was Bertie Pontifex, on the other Nicholas.
Next to Nicholas was Claribel. On either side of Mary Pontifex
were Romney and Matthew.

'It isn't a party,' she had said to Mary Pontifex. 'Almost
entirely family. But we thought you and Bertie would like a
little bridge.'

'My dear, I loathe parties,' said Mary Pontifex, lying
with that brazen confidence common to all successful
generals.

And yet, somehow, in a curious indefinable way it was a
party. It was, Fanny thought, as though all her family were
guests--even Charles, with whom for so many many years she had
shared the same bed.

They were there to criticize, she felt. If anything went wrong
they would let her know it.

It was presently made clear to everyone that Mary Pontifex had
been seeing a play called Wings over Europe and reading a
posthumous work by D. H. Lawrence called Apocalypse. She
had a voice incisively clear, brilliantly penetrating. It was
said that when she whispered secrets to a friend at a table in
the Carlton Grill, gentlemen in the Old Kent Road started in
astonishment. It was not that her voice was loud--but rather that
it cut the opposing ether as with a knife.

She talked about the younger generation.

'I believe in knowing what the young people are doing. I
admire the young. Lawrence was undoubtedly a genius. The young
man who wrote Wings over Europe seemed to me exceedingly
clever. Why don't you do something, Romney?' she threw
across the table. 'I don't know what it is you are
doing--pictures or something, isn't it?'

Romney murmured.

'Well, come and have tea with me one day and I'll give you
some advice. Do you know Stephen Morrison?'

No, Romney did not. He was blushing. His hatred of Mrs.
Pontifex was fanatical.

'No? But where have you been? He edits the Friday
Review. Quite the most brilliant of the weeklies, and he told
me only the other day that he wanted more young men--'

'I can't write,' Romney murmured.

'What nonsense! Of course you can. Don't tell me. You haven't
tried.'

Charles came in here.

'He's doing very well where he is,' Charles said. 'He knows
more about pictures than any other young man in London. And as to
writing it seems to me that there are far too many writers as
things are. All stepping on one another's toes.'

But Mary Pontifex, as it happened, was more militant than
usual, because Bertie that same afternoon had refused to tell her
where he had been between four and five. She was irritated. She
had not wished to come to the silly dinner. What had induced her
to promise on the telephone? She was in her most dangerous mood
because it seemed that nobody loved her, nobody followed her
advice, nobody thought her clever. She was never more certain of
her own brilliance than when others denied it.

'The matter with you, Charles,' she said, 'is that you are not
aware of what is going on.' She smiled at him. 'Don't think me
rude, but I do feel it's most important that we should all keep
up with the times--terribly interesting as they are. Look at
France! And America! Who would have believed it?'

Everyone looked at France and America. Then Nicholas said:

'Have you ever been in the West Indies, Mrs. Pontifex?'

She looked across the table, smiling brightly.

'No. Why?'

'Oh, you should go one day. You should study the habits of the
Parasol Ant. You should watch it as it goes along brandishing a
piece of leaf very much larger than itself. When it arrives at
its nest it chews up what it is carrying and adds this to its
nest. The nest becomes a kind of mushroom garden, and on this the
ants plant a fungus which grows and produces multitudes of
pearl-like bodies. These the ants eat and feed their larvae with
them.'

'How interesting!' Mrs. Pontifex said. 'But I don't quite
see--'

'It's only,' said Nicholas, 'that France and America don't
seem quite so important after you've watched the Parasol Ant for
a bit.'

Everyone laughed. Mrs. Pontifex laughed too, but uneasily. Was
this dangerous-looking man (you could see that he was an
adventurer) mocking her? Were they all mocking her? She was
suddenly lonely and longed for her daughter, Mamie, who, if she
had been here, would at once have rushed to her defence. And when
she felt lonely she felt angry. Fanny had laughed with
enthusiasm, not at all because she understood the point of
Nicholas' remark, but because there was danger in the air and
laughter was safest. Mary Pontifex, who in any case considered
Fanny a fool, thought: 'She's laughing at me. Fanny Carlisle of
all people--and in that absurd dress she's wearing!'

But the introduction of the Parasol Ant into the conversation
had general consequences. Nothing that evening quite recovered
from it. Life in these days is dangerous. We none of us know,
from minute to minute, where we may be. It was as though
Nicholas, with his smiling charm, had threatened everyone at the
table. 'If you don't look out I will tell you about something
worse than ants.'

The immediate result was that everyone began to talk at once:
Bertie Pontifex about the Stock Exchange, Grace to Matthew about
the Buchman movement, Romney to Claribel about Ernest Milton's
Shylock, Nell to Mrs. Pontifex about a cocktail-party where Mamie
Pontifex had been.

Of these Nell was the bravest, for she disliked Mrs. Pontifex
as deeply as Romney did, but something told her that her mother
needed assistance, that the party was going badly even as her
mother said that it would, that Mrs. Pontifex must be placated
because she was angry.

But, as she talked, smiling, a little hurried and breathless,
she thought how odd it was that Uncle Nicholas, with one word,
could bring a country that she had never seen so vividly before
her. Her picture, of course, could be nothing like reality. It
seemed to her now a brown island (Nicholas had told her once that
it resembled a crumpled piece of brown paper) filled with naked
brown people, and over its surface ants, chewing large leaves,
crawled in intolerable numbers.

Others also were thinking of Nicholas.

'Oh, but, Matthew,' Grace was saying, 'I wonder you are not
more interested because you've always said that religion is the
most absorbing thing in the world, and there really hasn't been a
movement in our lifetime--what I mean is that although Dr.
Buchman himself is an American, he does seem to have a kind of
universal understanding, and I've been to one of their
gatherings--House Parties they call them--where they all tell
openly about their faults and failings--'

'I shouldn't care about that at all,' said Matthew.

'Oh, well, you mightn't because you've got on so far--what I
mean is that you're so religious already--but for young men who
think about nothing but sport and going up to London for the
night it's really splendid--'

'It would only make me lose my temper,' said Matthew.

Grace dropped her voice.

'I'm not enjoying this much, Matthew, are you? I think it's
silly of us all to have dinner together so often. I know Nicholas
thinks it is.'

'Why--has he said so?' asked Matthew.

'No, but you can see that he does.'

Thinking once more of the Parasol Ant, Grace, in spite of
herself, shivered. How horrible! Ants in thousands upon those
sands, crawling over the earth, chewing as they went! She looked
at Matthew for reassurance, as in fact she had done ever since
she was a baby. For Matthew with his bright friendly eyes, round
face, round body, his cleanliness and tranquillity, his
understanding and inevitable loyalty, was, perhaps, the person
whom Grace loved best in the world--Matthew and Fanny.

As she looked at him she thought:

'How dreadful if he and Fanny knew what Nicholas knows! If
Nicholas were to hint . . .' Even now it seemed to her that
across the table he might, with a wink, with a gesture, fill her
soul with terror.

'Oh, why did I ever tell him? What induced me? But he
could get anything out of me. He always could when we were
children. He always will. . . .'

But it was not a glance from Nicholas (busily laughing with
Claribel) that she caught, but rather a sudden interchange of
smile and glance between Matthew and Romney. They had smiled at
one another across the table, and in that smile Grace caught
something of Matthew's shyness and Matthew's tenderness.

'He is shy of all of us,' she thought, 'and yet he would do
anything for any of us. Nicholas--he doesn't know what shyness
means, but he only pleases himself. And yet anywhere, if they
went out together, it would be Nicholas who would be noticed,
Nicholas who would be popular.'

She liked to think of people, to study them. In the letters
that she wrote to herself she described people until they were as
intimate to her as her own family.

'Oh yes, dear,' a letter would recount, 'I forgot to tell you
Miss Spink looked in last night. She was just as scandalous as
ever. I really had to stop her because she was saying such
things about Doctor Bennett.' Or: 'I think you'd like the
Hartleys, darling. She had a dreadful operation last
year--something internal, and they say it was quite a miracle
that she recovered, but now she is going about again, although
her hair has gone quite grey. . . .'

Oh yes, she knew Miss Spink and the Hartleys and Dr. Redmond
and old Mrs. Cass as well as well. They were her world, they kept
her alive, they and John--John who cared for her and longed for
her and . . .

She pulled herself together. Really they would think her
strange, staring in front of her and not speaking to anyone. And
Nicholas had said that it was all nonsense. Well, it was
all nonsense, come to that. A little crazy perhaps. But she
wouldn't give it up. She would just die without it. And they
mustn't know. She must speak to Nicholas again and make him
promise once more . . .

Then she saw that it was her favourite sweet--the best thing
that Mrs. Baldwin made. This was an ice pudding with dates and
cherries and nuts, flavoured with maraschino. A wonderful pudding
that was Mrs. Baldwin's secret.

Grace was frankly greedy. Why not? At her age and with her
figure she had ceased to worry about diet. What if she
were stout? John in Winchester did not care. . . . He had
said to her, again and again, in his letters: 'I don't like thin
women. Now Miss Spink is painfully thin. . . .'

When her turn came she helped herself liberally. Her eyes
beamed as she tasted. But what was wrong? She tried again. Why,
how horrible! Mrs. Baldwin had used salt instead of sugar. At the
same moment she heard Fanny cry out:

Bertie said: 'Oh, it's all right. I don't notice anything.'
But he did.

Mary Pontifex in a voice that would have cleared the Albert
Hall: 'Well--really--it's not so bad. Ice-cream always tastes
salty. What you should do, Fanny, is to get a cook from Mrs.
Marchant in Sloane Street. Remind me and I'll give you a note to
her.'

'Oh, but,' Fanny cried in an agony, 'it's too absurd, because
Mrs. Baldwin has been with us for years--hasn't she,
Charles?--and she's the most perfect cook. Everyone knows. Why,
you yourself, Mary, have said often . . . No, no, Rose. Take it
all away. Nicholas, don't think of eating it. But I can't imagine
what has happened. The soup was cold, and now this--'

'I could have told you long ago,' Mary Pontifex began, but
again Charles came to the rescue.

But in Fanny's heart there was a dreadful foreboding. For
weeks past she had been waiting for something to happen. She had
known that all was not right in the kitchen; Janet had been
strange, moving about the house like a prophetess, and when Fanny
had asked her whether she were unwell, simply shaking her head
and in her own maddening way merely replying:

'I'm perfectly well--perfectly.'

Yes, Janet. But Mrs. Baldwin? This was unheard-of. She was as
proud of her dinners as Julius Caesar of Britain, or Leonardo of
his newts and lizards, or Einstein of his violin. Not that Fanny
was thinking of these analogies. She was thinking that she must
keep a very tight hand on herself.

She knew from long and often-repeated experience how, from
afar, the lack of self-control approached her. At first no more
than a cloud the size of a button; a button of a cloud, a fist of
a cloud, a balloon of a cloud, and then the whole sky is dark,
there is a whirling wind, and she is saying things that she will
ever, her life after, regret. Now it seemed to her that everyone
was sitting round the table waiting for her outburst.

The strange thing was that there would be other dinners when
the cold soup, the salt in the pudding would not matter in the
slightest. Everyone would laugh. The little accidents would but
increase the friendliness.

To-night it was different. Every movement, every word, was
dangerous. She must not lose control.

Nevertheless when the ladies went up to the drawing-room, with
a smiling word of apology to her guests she left them for a
moment and visited Edward's room.

He still, big boy though he was, insisted on the night-light
of his babyhood. By its dim shaded colour she saw that he was
fast asleep, lying on his back with his mouth open. He was not a
beautiful child. There was nothing lovely about him now.

But for her there were all his irreconcilable characteristics:
his obstinacy and sudden melting submission, his secrecy and
moments of unexpected revelation, his hatred of sentiment and
touching dependent affection, his growing manliness and clinging
babyhood, his courage and cowardice, his separateness and his
close intimacy as though he were yet in her womb.

He was still hers.

She bent down and kissed him, then turned him on his side. He
didn't wake. She stood there in the half-dark, terribly near to
tears.

What was this sense that everything was slipping from her? Why
did she feel to-night that her own family was hostile?

'I'm a fool. I've always minded everything too much. I've
never laughed at myself enough. What does it matter if the soup
was cold and there was salt in the pudding? The world
won't stop because of it. But I do hate Mary Pontifex
to-night. Why should I care what she thinks?'

So she stood there for a little while summoning control. She
kissed Edward again and went down.

In the drawing-room Claribel was explaining to Grace how rude
menwere:

'Of course I know they can't help it, poor things. If they see
a woman about it's like a moth and a candle. All the same when it
comes to pinching you in a bus--'

'No one ever pinches me,' Nell said, laughing.

'Oh, well, when you're my age! But all the way from Hyde Park
Corner to Bond Street. And you know what the traffic is along
Piccadilly now. We were five minutes without moving.'

'Why didn't you get out of the bus?' said Mrs. Pontifex.

'Well, how could I? I was positively wedged in. If looks could
kill! But he was one of those men who are quite shameless!'

How disgusting, Fanny thought--and after all Nell was only
twenty. And could it be true that men to-day were like this? And
Nell so pretty. Why, it was only the other day that she had been
a schoolgirl with plaits down her back. Men! She saw them like
Nicholas' ants crawling about the earth, chewing leaf and flower.
. . .

'I'm afraid you'll think me rude, Claribel,' Mary Pontifex
said, 'but the women who get pinched are the women who
want to get pinched.'

Claribel was furious.

'Are you trying to tell me--'

'I'm not telling you anything, Claribel, my dear. But if
anyone knows anything about men I--'

The men came in.

But Claribel paid no attention to the men. She was swung into
her Cassandra mood, a mood enjoyed by her so greatly that she
surrendered even her anger with Mary Pontifex.

'Oh, you may say what you like, Mary! I don't care who hears
me. The fact is--and we all know it but some of us haven't the
courage to face it--that we are at the end of our civilization.
Everything is going to pieces--everything! Our money, our homes,
our governments--soon we won't have any security, any safety. It
will be worse than the Middle Ages. Talk of pinching!' She gave
one of her famous Cassandra laughs. 'It's the plain and elderly
ones that will be lucky! There'll be wolves again in Hyde Park,
we'll live in huts and wear skins, gnaw bones in our fingers, and
the men will hunt with packs of dogs through the jungles of
Piccadilly.'

Fanny burst out then with the first of her three absurdities
of the occasion.

'Whatever you say, Claribel, there'll always be spring
evenings.'

Everyone looked at her. What on earth did she mean? She
seemed, they all thought, to be far more excited than the
occasion warranted. They did not know that she saw Edward flying
for his life across Trafalgar Square, pursued by wolves, and Nell
hiding in the Burlington Arcade from fierce men, clad only in
skins. . . .

'Spring evenings?' said Mary Pontifex.

'Oh yes. How silly you must think me, but really, Claribel,
you're talking such nonsense. I only meant I've never forgotten
one evening last April. I was coming back from shopping. I've
never known such an evening--so beautiful. I only meant
that however bad things get there'll always be those evenings. .
. . Oh, do forgive me! I'm forgetting my duties. Now what about
bridge? How shall we play?'

While they were arranging the tables Nicholas was thinking:
'It's true what that silly woman says. We are going back to
lawlessness again. And a good thing too. There'll be pickings for
everybody. What a dull old age I would have had thirty years ago,
but now--'

He thought of Abel, with whom he had spent last evening.
Behind Abel there was that old life. Riding down to Montego
Bay--deserted then. . . . That strange old negro with the scar on
his leg, and the witchcraft, the scent of the thick smoke of the
fire, the saucer with the blood, the chicken screaming in the
yard, and beyond the open door, the white sands bordering that
lazy, warm, pellucid sea . . . Abel and that woman living with
him in the dirty Chelsea hotel, her old blind father . . . Abel
ready for anything . . .

Here the drawing-room with the solid furniture gleaming in the
firelight, the high bowl with the wine-streaked carnations, the
two bridge-tables, everyone smiling, quietly talking. . . .

In a moment, staring in front of him, the room seemed to him
to be thick with trees--the giant cotton tree, the calabash, the
anatta with its rosy-coloured flower, the star-apple tree with
the golden-bronze of the leaves, the yellow of the Jerusalem
thorn. . . .

'Now that's right,' said Fanny. 'You and I, Claribel, with
Romney and Charles.'

In the end it worked out differently, for Claribel was at the
other table with Romney and Nell and Bertie. How had this
occurred? Another of the misadventures of the evening. Fanny had
determined that she would not play with Mary and Nicholas. She
was not a bad bridge-player when she was quite at her ease. With
friendly people who were not aghast at some small blunder she
could keep her head. So long as Auction was the fashion she had
known where she was, but Contract, unless the atmosphere was
friendly, was terrifying. The risks of the bidding, the sense
that one careless word might lose your partner thousands of
points, bewildered her before she started.

She had realized the danger. She had planned that she should
be at a table with Charles and Romney and Claribel, for Claribel
thought too much about herself, the way that she was playing, a
possible flirtation with some gentleman, to be a good player.
Now, at the last moment, Charles had arranged it. Dear Charles!
He always maintained that Fanny was an excellent player in the
making, but that she would never improve except in the best
company. He would not, of course, realize that she was terrified
of Mary Pontifex and Nicholas. He could not know how dangerous
this evening was for her! He led her like a lamb to the
slaughter.

And slaughter it was. She forgot everything that she had ever
learnt. She was supposed to belong to the Culbertson school and
she had a card on which were written all the proper declarations.
But Fanny had never been good at mathematics. She played Contract
well when her head was clear, when the atmosphere round her was
friendly, when nobody minded losing a shilling or two.

But to-night she was opposed to Mary Pontifex. Fanny did not
know that Mary had considered that at dinner she had been mocked.
That she was determined now on revenge. But Fanny did know
that the atmosphere was grim, the air thick with animosity.

So she made every possible mistake. After the first rubber she
tried to leave the table and persuade Grace to take her place.
But Grace was an awful player, the more awful in that she
thought that she was rather good and looked on bridge as a kind
of Halma or Snakes and Ladders. Neither Charles nor Nicholas
would hear of Fanny's retirement. Nicholas foresaw a nice little
addition to his week's earnings.

So Fanny played and made blunder after blunder. The only time
that she won was when playing with Nicholas, and these games she
hated most of all, for Nicholas was tender to her, careful of her
as though she were an egg in a basket. Even then she made one
ridiculous bid and he looked at her. She flushed. She felt quite
isolated from the other three. She might have been behind prison
bars and Nicholas and Mary had kindly come to pay her a
visit!

'Poor Fanny,' they would say in their freedom and
irresponsibility. 'But it's really her own fault that she's come
to this. Her foolishness has brought her here.'

But it was Mary Pontifex's play that maddened her. Nicholas of
course was a real player, in a higher class than the rest
of them, but Mary, Fanny was convinced, was, in cold reality, no
better a player than herself. Mary had a commanding way with her.
She would make a mistake and dare the whole world to tell her
that it was one. No one, however good a player, conducted
successful post-mortems with Mary. But she was a coward. You
would not suspect it of her, but so it was. And you cannot play
Contract well if you are a coward.

Fanny knew this, and when at last the end came and she and
Charles had lost five pounds apiece (which in these days they
could ill afford), Mary Pontifex's self-satisfaction was a
dreadful thing to witness.

'Never mind, Fanny,' she said as they moved away towards the
fire. 'Come and have a quiet game with me some time. What you
want--'

'I don't need you to tell me what I want, Mary dear,'
Fanny said in a trembling voice.

These words were enough. They unlocked the gates.

Afterwards looking back (as she often did, for this was the
first crisis in the succession that led to the later catastrophe)
she wondered whether even then, tired though she was, she might
not have held on to the end had it not been for Nicholas' glance
at her. He had not intended her to catch it, but, sensitive as
she was just then, it was almost more than she could bear.

It said as though in words: 'I've a terrible fool for a
sister. I wonder if anyone else suspects it. I'll protect her as
long as I can.'

She cared for Nicholas so much, admired him so, had found him
so splendid all these weeks in the house, that his glance at her
stung her more fiercely than any of Mary's superiorities.

Something snapped in her brain. A long way off a voice
whispered: 'Now you're going to be foolish. You're going to burst
out with a lot of things that you will always regret.'

But her head was a hot whirling ball, the dinner had been a
ghastly failure, civilization was tumbling to pieces, Charles
through her had lost far more than he could afford. . . .

So she said: 'I don't need you to tell me what I want,
Mary dear.' Had her voice not trembled, all might even then have
been well, but the agitation behind the words caused everyone to
look at her.

And then Mary laughed.

'Certainly, Fanny. I never offer help where it's not
wanted.'

Fanny made a last effort to save herself. It was as though she
were on the edge of a high cliff. One push and she would be in
the tumbling, stormy waters. She smiled.

'Don't think me rude, Mary. Only I played bridge so
frightfully. I don't think I'll ever play again. What will
you drink, Mary? Charles, find out what everyone wants.'

Then Mary gave Fanny the final push over.

'Yes, a little lemonade, Charles, please. Yes, Fanny, I agree.
I don't think you've got the card sense. It's something
quite special, like playing the piano. And of course now bridge
is so scientific . . .'

As she spoke she knew that everyone in the room was wondering
what had come over her, that the children were uncomfortable,
Matthew and Charles sorry, Nicholas amused, Claribel
delighted.

('Oh, you fool, you silly fool,' the voice whispered. 'You
will regret this!')

'Now you're rude, Fanny,' Mary said, looking at her with great
dignity.

'I don't care if I am,' said Fanny, wishing that she could
steady her voice. 'Sometimes, Mary, you're quite insufferable.
Oh, I know that this is my own house, but I don't care. It's
time, Mary, that someone told you. You'd think we were all school
children--always telling us where to go, what to do.'

Mary looked as though she could not believe the evidence of
her ears, as though she were a Commander receiving the news of
one of his most important officers' disobedience, as though she
were Queen Victoria defied by Mr. Gladstone.

'Fanny!' she cried.

'Yes, I know.' (Oh, you'll regret this, you silly woman! But
it was not herself. It was some devil, some demon who, for
the moment, possessed her.) 'I don't care if I am rude,
Mary. All the evening you've been telling me what I should do,
and what my children should do. Where I should get a good cook,
and that I mustn't play bridge any more. And you're always
doing it, as though you knew all about everything and were
superior to everybody.'

. . . It's the quiet that I love, that I'm too fond of
altogether, I don't doubt. For me it has been an exciting day,
first Danny coming in with the news about his son's job, then
Romney's unexpected visit, and lastly poor Fanny's outburst this
evening. I suppose, as I told Danny, the truth is that I'm a
moral coward. I was no help to Romney at all, and yet how often
I've longed for him to come in just as he did. How often I've
thought of the talks we would have! Why did I fail? It's the old
trouble of being unable to convince someone of experiences that
they can't dream of having! Never surely before has there been so
wide a division between the two worlds! Reading Aquinas the other
day, and then shortly after a life of Newton, I realized afresh
that in the things of the soul we have not advanced one
whit--nay, gone back. Who can write or feel or think to-day like
this?

'You are a distinct portion of the essence of God; and contain
a certain part of him in yourself. Why then are you ignorant of
your noble birth? Why do you not consider whence you came? Why do
you not remember, when you are eating, who you are who eat, and
whom you feed? Do you not know that it is the Divine you feed,
the Divine you exercise? You carry a God about with you, poor
wretch, and know nothing of it. Do you suppose I mean some God
without you of gold or silver? It is within yourself that you
carry him. . . .

'Being, then, the work of such an artist, will you dishonour
him--especially when he hath not only formed you, but given your
guardianship to yourself? . . .

'I answer that I have not yet so much dignity as the case
demands. For I do not yet trust to what I have learned and
accepted. I still fear my own weakness. Let me take courage a
little, and then you shall see such a look, and such an
appearance, as I ought to have. . . .

'Such will I show myself to you . . . noble, tranquil!

'What, and immortal too, and exempt from age and sickness? No.
But sickening and dying as becomes the Divine within me. This is
in my power; this I can do.'

As I copy these words I know them to be true--as true to-day
as when Epictetus wrote them, true long long before he was born,
true long long after I am gone. But in the world for which Newton
cared they go for nothing, and it is his world and his alone that
has made the modern spirit. Why have not both worlds gone hand in
hand to make this modern one? If it had been so, what a grand
life we would all now be leading! How proud we would be, not for
ourselves but because we know that we carry God within us!

And yet I, who know this for as sure a fact as that I am
sitting here, two in the morning, with the window open in front
of me and the warm air streaming in upon me--am I proud or
confident? Yes, I was confident enough when Danny was sitting
beside me, believing the things that I believe. But when Romney,
wanting help and new confidence, came and appealed to me my
cursed shyness seized me. I hung my head and muttered some words
and he went away disappointed.

They talk so much, I notice, in the papers of reconciling
religion and science, but of what value would that be to us when
we all deny ourselves, are so contemptuous of ourselves and the
world in which we are living? It should have been an easy thing
for me to have said to Romney--I know that God is alive in me and
in you and, because of that, we should be proud men, happy and
confident, caring nothing if our bodies are blown to pieces,
eaten by a cancer--I know the difference between what is
ephemeral and what eternal, and yet am I not like anyone else,
bewildered by the selfishness, the greed, the cruelty--these
things in myself as well as in the outside world? How can I
persuade Romney that we must be proud men, carrying our heads
high, when I am myself so weak and cowardly?

And yet the secret life goes on and I know it to be true. I
should go out and fight more than I do, for there is a
battle. But it seems that as the inner life grows in a man it
draws him away from the outer, making him selfish, greedy for his
own quietness, wanting to be only with those who feel as he does.
. . .

And dear Fanny! I felt with her to-night all her fear and
apprehension. And I could do nothing. During dinner I was longing
to say to her--This is nothing. Laugh at it. There is no enemy in
the house. It is just as it was three months ago. And to put my
arm round her as I used to do. At Fenchurch for instance when the
pony ran away coming back from Bewling and she was so brave while
Grace and that silly girl friend of hers (I've forgotten her
name) were screaming. Then when it was all over and we were alone
in the schoolroom she cried. . . . And when she was rude to that
old Miss O'Malley and father was so angry, I understood
why the words poured out from her and how the thought that
that old flea-bitten dog had been ill-treated made her see poor
Miss O'Malley as a kind of Borgia and that she didn't mean
what she said. For so long now she has been tranquil and happy,
loving us all, the house, her life. But she must be loved,
be needed. If she isn't, her old moods of despair come back to
her so easily. And I, knowing all this, could do nothing for her
to-night. My cowardice again. Afraid of a scene.

But if I am 'not ignorant of my noble birth,' how is it that I
can be so inactive? I spend my life now with those who believe as
I do and with those who want to believe. And meanwhile,
outside us and disregarding us, untouched by us or by the things
that we know to be true, there is the whole mass of mankind.

Oh God, make me less of a coward. Make me more responsible for
Your power within me. Grant that this rich happiness of my own
experience may be the experience also of increasing numbers of
men! Above all help me that I may 'stand still from the thinking
of self, the willing of self.'

FANNY'S HOUSE

On a cold and windy afternoon early in September, Fanny was
shopping in Bond Street and Edward was her cavalier.

To say that she was shopping is possibly an exaggeration. She
had been lunching with the Frobishers and had brought Edward by
request because the Frobisher boy, Cyprian, was on holiday and
needed company. Cyprian--what a name to give the poor child!
Fanny was sorry for him before she knew him. She had not seen him
for a number of years. Last time he had been only six years old
and ill in bed with stomach-ache. He still, it seemed, had
stomach-ache. Nothing you gave that child agreed with him. He was
now on a new diet--bananas and goat's milk--but even that wasn't
satisfactory. What had really happened to him was that Mrs.
Frobisher had absorbed him just as she had absorbed Mr.
Frobisher, and the child liked to be absorbed! He adored
his mother. It was, in fact, a splendid mutual-admiration
nucleus, a grand manifestation of one way of making family
life a success! As Mrs. Frobisher tossed and preened her neat
little head and moved her neat little body inside her neat little
costume, proclaiming how wonderful a success everything Frobisher
was and how happy they all were, Fanny doubted more and more as
to the real happiness of her own home circle. The awful thing
about Mrs. Frobisher was that in her company you became mean and
revengeful. You longed to call out: 'Oh, but look at your little
boy! He has to live on bananas and goat's milk!' or 'Yes, Mr.
Frobisher's pictures may be popular, but you know that he has no
personality at all. He is never reckoned among the interesting
painters. He has been producing for years these excellent
versions of English country life, but there's nobody inside them.
Nobody at all.'

And Edward looked at Cyprian with dismay. He simply wondered
how a boy could be like that. He was polite for his mother's sake
but hugely relieved when they made their departure.

'He must get sick of bananas,' he said to his mother. 'He eats
twelve a day.'

'Well, it won't be for long,' said Fanny cheerfully. (Her
spirits began to rise again immediately.) 'They'll be trying
another diet soon. Mrs. Frobisher is thinking of quite a new
doctor, and they are sending him to a school especially for
delicate boys.'

'Well, you see, since father retired he's only got his
investments, and investments are bad at present. They go down and
down.'

'Shan't we be able to live in Westminster soon?' Edward
asked.

'Oh yes. It isn't as bad as that. We own the house, and Granny
and Uncle Matthew help. But we've got to be careful. Just like
everyone else.'

'People don't look as though they were being careful,' Edward
said, gazing on the splendours of Bond Street.

Fanny almost pressed her nose against the shop-window panes.
She could never tell which shop she preferred. They had taken a
bus up Regent Street, walked along Oxford Street and started down
Bond Street from the Oxford Street end. Here, on the left, one
glory succeeded another. At Walpole's the linen was enchanting.
Then there was the picture shop with the queer, modern pictures
which Romney would appreciate. They were altogether beyond Fanny.
To-day there were two pictures--one of a naked lady whose skin
was as scarlet (she was holding, for no especial reason, an
orange in her left hand), and another was of a fishing village
running violently down a steep place into the sea.

'Why's she holding an orange?' Edward asked.

'I don't know, darling,' said Fanny. 'Perhaps she's on a diet
like Cyprian.'

Then they came to the bookshop whose window was filled with
books from 'the late Mr. Arnold Bennett's library.' Among these
was a copy of Malory, priced only five shillings, and when Fanny
saw it she determined to buy it for Edward. She purchased it and,
when they came out again, gave it to her son.

'You must take care of it, Edward, darling. It's very exciting
to read. All about King Arthur's Round Table.'

'Have you read it?' Edward asked.

'No, as a matter of fact I haven't, but then I'm terribly
uneducated. I don't want you to be like me. But you must keep it
always because it belonged to Arnold Bennett.'

'Who was he?' Edward asked.

'A very great writer, darling.'

Then they came to the dog-shop, about whose delights there
clustered a small group of amused people. On the upper shelf in
the window sat a proud Pekinese who was pretending that he knew
nothing at all about a fox-terrier puppy in the lower shelf,
wildly barking, frantically excited.

Edward was hard to draw away from this window.

'I'd like that puppy,' he said wistfully. 'If I saved my
money, mother, and you sold this book, don't you think--?'

'We'll see,' said Fanny impulsively. 'I'd love to have it. I
dare say we could manage--' Then she pulled herself up. Charles
would never allow a puppy. She threw the dog a longing glance and
lured Edward away. . . .

They passed the dignified portals of Colnaghi, the shop with
the leather bags, the shop with old silver (always in its window
were silver knives, tied together in bunches, silver knives with
bright green handles) and then a window--well, Fanny simply
stayed, rooted to the ground, gazing. One dress only was
displayed, alone in its glory, a dress of silver gauze. What was
there about it? Why was it so lovely? And did she not know that
she would be absurd in it, far too old, far too tall? It was a
dress for a young girl, for Nell perhaps. And at that thought she
longed--longed so passionately that it hurt her heart in her
breast--that she might buy it for Nell. Absurd, of course--it
would cost pounds and pounds--pounds and pounds . . . Only last
night Charles had warned her against extravagance and she had
said: 'Isn't it about time Nicholas got a job?' and he had said:
'Why, Fanny, you don't grudge Nicholas . . .' Yes, she was
beginning to grudge Nicholas, and she wanted that dress for Nell
so terribly that she could understand exactly why a hungry man
broke the glass of a baker's window and the magistrate said:
'What are things coming to when a man deliberately . . .'

'Don't you think,' said Edward's voice in her ear, 'that if I
asked father to give me my next birthday present
now--after all, it's in six weeks anyway--and he mightn't
mind a dog if I looked after it myself. . . .'

Nell had been so sweet lately. She hadn't had a new dress for
ages. And Fanny did grudge Nicholas. There he had been in
the house ever since April, staying at home even in August when
Charles and Fanny and the children had gone to Cornwall, and it
had been very strange, coming back last week, to be received by
Nicholas exactly as though he owned the house. Of course she
loved him and he was her brother, but the house wasn't as it had
been before he came. Nothing was the same. And who was that
strange, foreign brown man she had seen coming down the stairs
yesterday, humming to himself? One of Nicholas' friends, but he
didn't look at all trustworthy . . . and after all, was Nicholas
himself quite trustworthy, for he had never repaid Charles' fifty
pounds and had taken that old picture of the fishing fleet from
the drawing-room and hung it near his bed? She sighed. No, she
must not buy the dress. She turned away.

'Come along, dear, it's time we went home. Tea-time.'

And then, as she turned, she was happy again. The skies were
grey, the afternoon was darkening, but the more because of that
Bond Street shone with splendour. In spite of the traffic it was
very quiet. And yet it should be quieter. It should be the one
street where there was no traffic and, in the lighted
splendour of the evening or on a hot morning of a summer day, you
would hear nothing but the footsteps of men and women, passing,
loitering, smiling, bowing to friends. Behind walls of glass were
presented the treasury of the earth, gorgeous books in morocco,
pictures, crimson and blue and green, Tang horses of rose,
Chinese plates of crystal, cases of rich leather, silver knives
with green handles, ropes of pearls and collars of diamonds,
carnation and rose and lily, and queen of them all, the dress of
silver gauze waiting for Nell, who, alas, would have to wear that
same white silk with the rosebuds, of which, as Fanny knew, she
was most patiently weary.

'What would you buy, Edward,' Fanny asked as they walked away,
'if someone told you to make your choice?'

'I'd buy a puppy,' said Edward.

'And after that?'

'Well, I do want a box of tools,' said Edward, who saw that
this was an opportunity. 'Father said he would give me some of
his old ones, but he likes them all too much.'

'I'm sure I don't know who does buy all these things,'
Fanny said. 'Everyone says they haven't a penny any more.'

They stopped again to look in at Asprey's window and gazed at
Noel Coward in a silver frame.

'There must be some rich people left,' Fanny said.

Then, to give Edward a treat, she engaged a taxi to take them
home. This was an extravagance, but Edward's pleasure was a
delight. She sat with her arm around him and thought of all the
things she would do when Charles' investments went up again. She
had had a very happy afternoon.

'Gosh!' Edward said, 'I would like to have that puppy!'

Then she received the worst shock of her life--yes, really the
worst. Nothing so bad as this since she was born. . . .

She had rung the bell for tea and was standing there wondering
where the others could be when Janet appeared.

'Why, Janet--!' Fanny said. She knew at once that something
was wrong and she knew, at the same moment, that after Charles
and the children she loved this tall bony woman in the grey print
dress more than anyone else in the world.

'What's the matter, Janet?'

'May I speak to you a moment alone, mum?'

'Why, of course. Come up to my bedroom. I want to take my hat
off.'

As she led the way she wondered what the matter could
be. Things had not been right downstairs for a long time. Ever
since the night of the dinner when Fanny had been rude to Mary
Pontifex, Mrs. Baldwin had been reserved, 'brooding,' as Fanny
put it. She hadn't liked it when Fanny spoke to her. But then
what was Fanny to do--the soup cold and salt instead of sugar in
the pudding? But all that Mrs. Baldwin, with a shrug of her huge
shoulders and a twist of her moustached upper lip, had found to
say was:

'Things in the house aren't what they was.'

No, they were not, and as Fanny pushed back her bedroom door,
looked round smiling and saying, 'Come in, Janet,' she sighed.
Even Cornwall had not been as easy as usual.

She went to her dressing-table, took off her hat and turned
round. 'Now, Janet, what's the trouble?'

Janet stood, her hands folded in front of her, as rigid as a
lamp-post.

'Sit down. We can talk more easily.'

'No, mum, I'd rather stand. It's this--' She swallowed in her
throat. 'I'm thinking of retiring.'

'You're--what?'

'Of retiring. I've got a little house in Hampstead--in the
Garden Suburb. My brother--the one that had the jeweller's in
Camberwell and was a bachelor--he left it me when he died. It's
been let all this time, but I've got my savings, and there's my
sister Angela's girl would be willing and glad to come and live
with me.'

She stopped. She could not say another word. The two women
stared at one another.

'But, Janet,' Fanny said at last, 'you're the greatest friend
I have in the world.'

'And I'm sure you're mine.' All pretence of official
relationship was dropped. 'I never thought that we would be
parted, not until death came and separated us. But there it is--I
think it would be best for me to be going.'

Fanny pressed her hand on the dressing-table that she might
steady herself. She thought--Now don't lose your head over this.
Janet doesn't mean it. She's only got a complaint of some kind. I
must find out what the complaint is. So she said, looking
straight into Janet's eyes--eyes of perfect loyalty and
faithfulness:

'Now, Janet, don't talk nonsense. You know we couldn't bear to
be separated, either of us. Now what's the matter? What's been
troubling you?'

Janet closed her lips--and when she closed her lips, as Fanny
well knew, she closed them. She became as obstinate as Balaam's
ass and, in her own view, for excellent divine reasons.

'She's often grumbling. She's made that way. I pay no
attention to her grumbling. Never have.'

'Then, Janet, what is it?'

'Nothing that you can cure. I'm not so young as I was, and a
home of my own would be a change, like.'

'Nonsense, Janet. You'd be bored in a week.'

'Maybe I would. Maybe I wouldn't.'

Fanny wanted to shake her. And she wanted to kiss her.

'Janet--you owe me something. And I owe you almost everything.
Let's be honest. We love one another. We have seen one another
through trouble. Life isn't going to be easier as we get older.
The children will be grown-up soon and I shall need you more than
ever. Are you going to desert me?'

'No, I'm not.' Janet's slim face puckered almost as though she
were going to cry. Her upper lip trembled.

'Tell me what it is.'

'No, I can't.'

Fanny put out her hand and took Janet's.

'Let me tell you this. I haven't been happy either this
summer. I need you beside me more than ever before--'

'Well, then, don't you see--' Janet broke out. Then
stopped.

She pulled herself together, smoothing her dress with a hand
that trembled.

Nell was in love with a married poet. His name was Hector
Collins. She was not sure that she was in love until she looked
back upon him from the crowded bathing-beaches (once silent and
mysterious moon-shadowed coves) of Cornwall. Then she knew that
she loved him and wanted always to be with him that she might
cook his food better than Lottie, his wife, cooked it, that she
might earn money for him, that she might give him peace that he
might write his epic, 'The Wilderness.'

Hector was ten years older than Nell, but he looked younger.
He was thirty years of age, and you would suppose that he was in
his first year at some University. When he and Nell were together
they appeared to be brother and sister, for they were both very
fair, very, very youthful, innocent and helpless in appearance.
Lottie Collins, Hector's wife, stood over them like a beautiful
protecting goddess, for Lottie was both the loveliest and the
stupidest woman Nell had ever known or was ever likely to
know.

On the occasion when Nell had first met Hector (it was at a
grapefruit party--at that time a new idea for a party, now
a very old one), Nell had said, 'Who is that lovely
woman?' and Hector had answered, 'That's my wife, and she's not a
woman, she's an imbecile.'

Nell had asked him whether he should talk about his wife like
that and had said that no woman so lovely could be an
imbecile.

'Oh, but that's nonsense,' said Hector. 'Don't you remember
the girl in Trollope's novel who marries Planty Pal? Don't you
read Trollope? Well, I assure you Lottie couldn't be stupider.
She's stupid enough to tell everyone she is stupid--as
though they don't at once find it out for themselves. But you'll
soon see.'

Nell soon did. It was quite true. Lottie was incredible. But
how lovely she was! She was of the type that wins those
International Beauty Prizes--'Miss England, 19--'--and then a
little later writes articles saying how simple it is and that one
lather with warm brown mud ('and be sure not to remove it until
the morning') before retiring at night . . . Lottie was just like
that: dark brown hair in wonderful waves and then a cluster of
curls above the nape ('only five minutes at night. Each curl must
be separately treated of course . . .'), a marvellous figure with
bust and hips of precisely the right measurement, lovely hands
and feet . . . Oh yes, and it was true that she did almost
nothing to have it just so. She ate what she liked and slept when
she wanted to and, beyond plucking her eyebrows, took no especial
steps. . . . She was too stupid to be proud of her beauty. She
didn't care whether she were beautiful or no. She didn't want to
attract men. What she liked were marshmallows, plenty of sleep
and the pictures. She adored the pictures! She could go,
she declared, every afternoon and evening of the year and never
tire. But the odd thing was that even at the pictures she slept
as often as not, slept with her fingers arrested in the search
for a 'hard' chocolate in the chocolate-box, slept with the smile
of an infant on her beautiful features.

Unfortunately she and Hector were dreadfully poor. He had
married her, quite frankly, because her beauty had knocked him
silly, but why she had married him . . . She was really
too stupid to know why.

So they lived in a very stuffy and melancholy little flat in a
sort of fortress off Sloane Square. A woman came in, two or three
times a week, and 'did' for them. They went out for their meals.
The flat was always in a state of disorder that made Nell's heart
ache. The first reason for loving him was that she wanted to make
things tidy.

A queer thing about Lottie was that, half-asleep as she always
appeared, she resented quite sharply any interference. Her big
beautiful brown slumbering eyes suddenly flashed. Oh yes, and she
would say:

'Leave it where it is, Nell darling. We'll see to it later. .
. .'

For she adored Nell. She stood over her (she was quite
statuesque) and patted her golden head and stroked her cheek and
said, in her husky, slumbering voice: 'Nell, darling . . .
how sweet to see you.'

Hector did his best to earn. Just now he was a super in a
surréaliste play at the Rose Theatre.
Surréaliste plays were almost out of fashion--this
was the last there would be--but he manfully did his best as an
automaton clerk, one of six sailors in a brothel in Marseilles,
an algebraical formula, a sign of the wrath of God, and a
saxophonist in a jazz orchestra representing the Seven Deadly
Sins. The play would not run long, he told Nell on her return
from Cornwall, and then he did not know what he would do.

But he was a real poet. He belonged to the new school, poets
like Auden and Day Lewis and Spender, poets no longer hopeless
like the generation before them but confident of the future.

A small volume of his poems called We Climb the
Mountain was published by the Hogarth Press.

His epic, 'The Wilderness,' however, was the thing. He was not
boastful of this--nor unduly proud. He was certainly glad that it
would resemble in no way Georgian poetry but otherwise made no
claims for it.

Its theme was that of a London ruined and deserted, a very old
theme indeed. No specimen of the human race remained any longer
on the planet. He wrote of the creeping invasion of the
Wilderness. The wild cats invaded the foyer of the 'Rose' where
now he was performing. They clustered about the stalls, their
fiery eyes blazing at the painted back-cloth, tattered and torn,
of a bathing-beach on the Lido with gay parasols and a purple
sea. In the middle of Piccadilly there was a cavity where the
road-menders had been at work, and here the rain had made a pool;
in this pool the moon and stars were reflected, and a dog,
furious with hunger, gazed angrily at his own impotent longings.
High tall grasses sprang up about Eros and wild yellow flowers
hung above his naked thighs.

Then the Wilderness begins to feel its power. In Streatham and
Surbiton and Croydon the jungle grows. Through the windows of the
little red houses tendrils creep and seize with tingling appetite
the cheap mirrors green with mould, climb about the beds and
choke the fireplaces. From the floors there sprout strange pale
fungi, and through the doors and down the passages roots push
their way, and young trees grow from the heart of the dining-room
table.

His epic was to begin thus. But the true (and as he felt,
utterly individual) theme was then to develop. For to the
Wilderness God again returns and, bending down to the jungle,
with eyes bright with a new hope, surveys the scene.

'I will make another attempt,' He says, and once again
creates. But this time not Man. That has been too tiresome a
failure.

This time He will make a new creation, part man, part bird, of
the essence of light, light changing into light, form into form,
for it is because of his Individuality that Man has failed. Now
there will only be agents of the Divine Will making a small
fragment of Heaven out of the Wilderness. . . .

'I must go to the Regal to-night,' Lottie would say.
'It's Clark Gable in Love in Peril--too divine.'

Hector was, in spite of his apparent sophistication, still a
child, as were most of his companions. He was a child because he
was bewildered by the things that life did to him. He had not
reached the maturity of realizing that there was something in
life more important than his personal fate.

He could not, for instance, understand why he had married
Lottie, nor why, intelligent as he was, he failed to make more
money, nor why men like Temple and Forsyte succeeded as writers
and he did not. He was a better artist than they, but they, in
spite of the condemnation of them by all his circle, were not so
truly bad that he could comfortably despise them. His father was
a clergyman in Northumberland and lived there with Hector's
mother in a happiness and tranquillity that seemed to Hector
quite incredible. 'Don't they know what's happening to the
world?' he would say. He realized, however, that they possessed
something that he had not. It could not be only their
religion. It could not be only their love for one
another.

It was on the afternoon following Nell's return from Cornwall
that they spoke to one another honestly for the first time, in
the untidy little room, Nell sitting on the sofa, Hector standing
by the window.

'Lottie will be in any minute.'

'I mustn't stay,' Nell said. 'I only looked in to see how you
were. Why didn't you write?'

'I don't write letters,' he said, 'unless it's
absolutely necessary.'

She leaned over the arm of the sofa, looking at him. She
herself recognized that they might be brother and sister. She
wondered whether it were a vain narcissism in her that she should
love him. But she could not tell because she had never loved
anyone before.

'That isn't true,' she said. 'You've written me lovely
letters.'

'Glad you liked them,' he answered, smiling. 'Do you know,
Nell, how alike we are? I never realized until I saw you what a
lovely pale gold my eyebrows are, what a fine white forehead I
have, and my figure--it's superb!'

'And I love you,' Nell said. 'I didn't know until I was in
Cornwall this time.'

They didn't move, but stayed where they were, looking at one
another.

'Perhaps it was because I didn't write. It made me seem more
valuable.'

'No. I was bathing one morning with Edward and I suddenly
knew.'

'What are we going to do about it?' he asked.

'I don't know. What do people do?'

'They sleep together and get tired of one another. Or they run
away and quarrel, or they never see one another again.'

'That seems a silly thing to do,' said Nell.

'Perhaps they feel that that's the only way to keep their fine
emotions.'

'I've never been in love before, so I don't know,' Nell
said.

He came over to the sofa, sat on the edge of it and put his
arms around her. They kissed. This moment was so very much more
glorious than any that Nell had ever known that it was as though
she died--soon to be born again into another existence.

After a while Hector said:

'We won't make a mess of this, will we--like everyone
else?'

He walked about the room, laughing.

'Oh, I'm so happy! . . . I'm so happy!'

Then Lottie came in.

'Hullo, you two!' She came up to Nell and kissed her. 'You
sweet pet! I'm so glad you're back. Where have you been? Oh yes,
I know, Cornwall. I'm simply dead. Isn't this room in the hell of
a mess?' She threw her hat on to the floor and lay down, full
length, on the sofa.

'I must be going,' Nell said. 'I only came in for a
minute.'

'Oh, don't go,' Lottie said. 'We'll go out and have tea
somewhere.'

'No, I must go. Mother's expecting me.'

When she was in the Westminster house again she could not
believe that everything could be so different. The whole
affair--and by affair the heavens and the planets and the wind in
the deep gullies of Mont Blanc are intended, as well as the
cellar where Charles' wine is kept--had rings on its fingers and
bells on its toes. She burst into the drawing-room expecting to
find the dear family (for she loved them all now) and instead saw
the room in a kind of rosy smoke as though sunset clouds had
descended, and in the middle of this Uncle Nicholas waiting for
his tea.

He saw at once how happy she was. 'By Jove, she's lovely!' he
thought, for Nell was like a vase that changes its colour with
the flowers it carries. Her happiness was opaque, shining, and
the clearest, truest silver against Nicholas' polished steel. But
he had from the day of his arrival liked her best of the family.
He liked her youth, her courage, her audacity, and he liked her
because she didn't altogether like him. 'But she will.
I'll make her.' She and that old cross-grained servant and
Matthew were the three now in the house whom he did not
control.

When he felt (quite honestly) generous and affectionate, as he
did now, he was charming. He was excited, too, because in two
hours' time he was off to see Mrs. Agar and Abel. It was
happening here as it always happened with him wherever he was. He
had only got to be there for situations to develop on
every side of him. Up they piled, the atmosphere becoming ever
more charged--and then one day--bang! What an explosion!

This was what he loved--to be such a failure and yet so
powerful. What an ordinary handsome conventional English
gentleman and officer he appeared! And yet--how he could
stir people up!

And this girl had something of the same quality. The only one
in the family. He would make something of her, show her a thing
or two. She should surrender to him more completely than any of
the others. She seemed to surrender to him now because, although
she did not like him, she was so happy that she must come close
to anyone and everyone.

'Where are they all?' she asked.

'I don't know. I rang for tea. Your mother and father are out
so there's only the Old Lady and Grace. The Old Lady's got
rheumatics in her left leg.'

Even through her happiness she realised how completely now he
owned the room and everything in it. He stood there, his legs
spread, his handsome body perfectly balanced, like a triumphant
rooster proclaiming his mastery to the sun.

'Well, you look as if you'd had good news,' he said,
lightly holding out his hand to her, which she for a moment as
lightly took. Then she moved away and sat down.

'One must be happy sometimes,' she answered, 'at my age. Why
shouldn't I be happy?'

'Oh, you should be! Even I'm happy sometimes, a
penniless old failure like me.'

'Do you really think you're a failure?' she asked. 'Or is that
a pose?'

'Oh, I never pose. I am the only completely honest man alive
in the world to-day.' Looking at her, his eyes, little sharp
points of light, dancing over her, he proclaimed:

'It makes no difference abroad,
The seasons fit the same,
The mornings blossom into noons,
And split their pods of flame.
Wild-flowers kindle in the woods,
The brooks brag all the day;
No blackbird bates his jargoning
For passing Calvary.
Auto-da-fé and judgement
Are nothing to the bee;
His separation from his rose
To him seems misery.

'To-day, Nell,' he said, 'your bee and your rose are one. Keep
them together as long as you can.'

She knew his habit of quoting poetry and thought it an
intolerable affectation, showing off. But now she was not so
sure. This was perhaps a step in his purpose like so many other
things with him. She was sharp enough to know that he was always,
morning, noon and night, intent on his own purposes.

'Who's that poem by?' she said, looking at him ironically.

'It doesn't matter who it's by,' he said. 'Poets sting
and die. Or should do. She did.'

The maid came in with the tea. He waited until she had gone,
then he said:

'Some young man has told you that he loves you.'

'Shall I pour out?' she asked. 'Or wait for Aunt Grace?'

'Who ever waited for Aunt Grace?' he said, smiling
maliciously. 'Save the gentleman in Winchester. She is, I don't
doubt, writing a letter to him at this moment.' He raised his
head and listened almost as though he could hear her writing.
'The longer you stay in this house,' he said, 'the less walls
count. In another six months they'll all be made of paper. Now,
Nell--who's the young man?'

'Yes, he is,' she said, to her own complete surprise. She had
not dreamed of telling him. But he had invaded her happiness,
pushing his way in, gaily, lightly. It was as though he had been
there from the beginning. Now that she had told him she was
rather glad. There was no other member of the family to whom she
could speak, and Uncle Nicholas knew more of the world than
anyone else. He could advise her. Leaning forward, her eyes
shining, her cheeks flushed, she told him everything.

He was deeply interested and was at once so kind, so wise, so
friendly that for the first time she liked and trusted him.

'It mustn't be spoilt,' she said. 'Don't you see, Uncle
Nicholas? It's the finest thing that has ever happened to me or
ever will happen. And he can be a great poet. He can
really. It will make all the difference to his work if I don't
let him down.'

'Let him down? Of course you won't let him down!'

'Of course I may.' She shook her head impatiently. 'Don't you
see, Uncle Nicholas, what a chance this is? Everyone says how
disappointing life is, that marriage is always a failure, that no
two people love one another long--and if we can make it
last they are wrong--everyone's wrong.'

'And what of the young man's wife?' Nicholas asked, nibbling a
biscuit, looking at it with appreciation, and nibbling again.

'We shall have to tell her, of course.'

'Will she like that?'

'Oh no--I suppose not--I don't know. She's so funny. She
doesn't seem to mind about anything and then quite suddenly if
you touch anything of hers she wakes up and is angry.'

'Then I shouldn't tell her.'

Nell leaned forward clasping her knees. Nicholas thought that
he had never seen anything so lovely, for the flame-glow of the
fire very delicately caressed her throat and cheeks as though it
were sharing her happiness, and her shadowed hair was light gold
against light.

The door opened and Grace came in. He looked up at her,
laughing. 'I keep secrets wonderfully, don't I, Grace?'

She flushed, looked about her to see who was in the room, then
gave him an almost piteous look.

'Why, yes, Nicholas, of course. How should I know? Oh,
Nell, darling, there you are. No one else in. I meant to have
gone out and got that book from the Library, the one about
Esquimaux that Charles wanted. I promised him that I would, but I
believe I had forty winks and it's not nice out, is it? The sun
has gone in and the clouds have been racing along--yes, dear, not
too strong. And what have you been doing with yourself,
darling?'

Why, Nell wondered, did she look at Nicholas in that
uncomfortable way? I have noticed it before. She seems to be
afraid of him. As she helped her aunt she wished that she had not
been so impulsive. Half an hour ago there had been a secret
between herself and Hector. Now it was shared. She went up to her
room to be alone with her happiness.

But she would have been surprised had she known how greatly
Nicholas had been touched. This emotion was now, at this moment,
looking at Grace with cynical kindliness across the tea-cups,
quite real. The world that he intended that very evening to
inhabit had little about it to correspond with Nell's freshness
and inexperience and youth--but, by Jove, he thought, they talk
and write so much about the sophistication of the young these
days. It's superficial. There's no change a skin down. Nor,
perhaps, in any of us.

Before going up to wash he went out for a five minutes'
stroll. He wanted to think about things, to see where he was.
Mrs. Agar, Abel, old Mme. Litvinoff--he would be with them all
very shortly and must take a line. Abel wanted more money. By
God, he himself wanted more money! Things were moving--in this
house and out of it.

He strolled down the street and stood looking up at the great
black pile of the Abbey above him. In the semi-dark it stood
there like a mountain breasting the tide. Hanging, as it seemed,
to the corner of one of the towers was a brilliant star, fiery
and angry, as though it were indignantly battling for its place
against the shreds and patches of ebon cloud that swept about it.
A wind was up. The little street where he stood was quiet enough,
but he indulged the fancy that the whole town was heaving about
him. Standing on a beach at night, the breakers advance and then,
under a dark sky with a line of white foam, hang suspended. So
now the Abbey seemed to breast an advancing sea, and the murmur
of traffic, two streets away, full of rhythm and also with that
hesitating break that the waves have, confirmed the illusion.
What was he doing to these people with whom for the moment he was
living? Why not leave them alone? But, looking up at the star, he
shook his head. This was a cracking, crumbling world. Law and
order were gone or going. That Abbey there stood for nothing any
more save a few sentimental, broken, discredited traditions. He
must occupy himself, amuse himself, feel his cleverness. Only
that child. He would not hurt her. He would give her some good
advice. And then he thought of his own Lizzie. How different
human beings were! How unique everyone! Nell and Lizzie! Himself
and Matthew! Fanny and Mrs. Agar!

Was there perhaps, after all, something like a soul, something
personal and separate? But again he shook his head at the
star--and strolled home.

He changed into a dark suit and went to give Abel something to
eat at the 'Crab-tree' restaurant in Soho. This evening was
important. He must come to some decision both about Abel and
about Mrs. Agar. He did not like coming to decisions. Again and
again in the past he had wandered into some position and all he
asked was to be allowed to stay there quietly. But, because he
could not keep his finger out of any pie but must always
maliciously stir and probe, positions refused to remain static.
And sometimes the new positions were so opposed to one another
and so intricate that he had not time to prepare for the crisis.
It came, and all that happened was that himself and Lizzie
slipped away by the next train, leaving the most horrible mess
behind them. The complication in the present position was that he
was really happy where he was, and on the whole Lizzie was happy
too, although he could never quite tell what Lizzie was feeling.
Well, leave it alone then. He had his comfortable room (into
which he had now been able to insert from other rooms a few
decent pictures, a small Persian rug, a pair of George III.
silver candlesticks, one or two odds and ends), comfortable meals
and the company of his own people. (For, after all, was
not blood thicker than water? But were they his own people? It
seemed incredible.) He was comfortable and safe and living
practically for nothing. Well, leave it alone then! Ah! there was
the trouble. He could not. He hadn't asked to interfere
but how could he help it? How could he sit down quietly and watch
their silly sentimental lives and not interfere? The
things they believed in, the affection they pretended to have for
one another! Charles, Grace, Fanny, Matthew! And those two
children! They could not, no, they could not, step out
into the world with only those obsolete old people to advise
them!

He was never aware so sharply of the dying, vanishing world
that still pervaded that Westminster house as when he moved into
the world of the outlaws, his own world. For he was
an outlaw, had been one for many years, and the only difference
to-day from the past was that once he had been the exception and
now he was the rule. In this new chaos everyone cheated, robbed
and plundered if it were reasonably possible. Anyone would do
anything for money. He did not pretend that Abel and Mrs.
Agar and John Flagstaffe (how the circle spread once you touched
it!) were normal and average people. There were millions of
law-abiding normal citizens still doing their best to exist
honestly in this present topsy-turvy world. But they were finding
it with every day more difficult, and with every day the Agars
and Abels and Flagstaffes were penetrating further, growing
bolder and more daring, showing law and order--the old law
and the old order--to be ever more helpless, more
completely unworkable.

Sitting opposite to Abel at a little corner in the
'Crab-tree,' he thought to himself: 'Thirty, twenty years ago
even, they would have put this little rascal into gaol and kept
him there.' He didn't wish even now to be seen in any very public
place with Abel. The little man was wearing a dark blue suit and
a dark blue tie. His sleek shiny black hair was neatly brushed
and his brown cheeks as smooth as the back of a hair-brush, but
he looked the pirate he was. Cheerful, humorous, delighted to be
with Nicholas, but a pirate, and a dangerous one.

The 'Crab-tree' was a dark stuffy little pothouse, but most
convenient for dinners such as this. On the walls were pictures
of pugilists. The food was good and the proprietor, a Greek
called Cavafy (a slur on a noble Greek poet), was a tall bony
skeleton with a broken nose.

'Well, how are things?' asked Abel, grinning. He couldn't take
his eyes off Nicholas. He was always so deeply delighted to be in
his company.

'Oh, all right. Look here, Abel, you're not to come into the
house again. My sister saw you the other day and thought you
looked very queer.'

'Very good.' Abel leaned his arms on the table. 'But tell
me--how is it about money? It looks a very wealthy house.'

'Well, it isn't. I've told you before. My brother-in-law has
only his investments and they are down like everyone else's.'

'Mine are down too,' Abel said. 'I haven't a bean.'

'That's just,' said Nicholas, 'what I want to talk about. I
told you at the beginning, months ago, that you are only wasting
your time here. I shan't have any more money to give you. I'm
only just subsisting myself.'

'This time they're true,' Nicholas answered sharply. 'You
remember--months ago--when I came here first I told you the same
thing.'

'We haven't done so badly,' Abel said reflectively. 'And I
like London. So do you. And I've done something for you. I've
found Mrs. Agar.'

Then into Nicholas' eyes there came a look which Abel knew
well. Nicholas ceased to be a gentleman.

'You'd better take care,' he said. 'You've followed me and
blackmailed me and annoyed me ever since I left Jamaica. I'm
lazy. I let things run on. But now I'm with my own people. Having
none yourself you don't know what that means. What it means is
that things are different from the past.'

He paused, drank his wine, wiped his lips, then went on:

'What it means is that you shall have a hundred pounds in the
next three days, you will leave England--go to hell if you
like--and never speak nor write to me again. If you bother me, I
put the police on your track. They'll be glad to hear of you in
Paris or in Marseilles or Genoa. Almost anywhere. Even here in
London perhaps.'

Abel drank his wine, smacked his lips appreciatively.

'That's good wine,' he said. He filled his glass and raised
it. 'I drink your health, Captain.' He drank his wine again. 'Now
why all this unkindness? I've treated you well this summer. I've
had very little money from you. I've looked after your interests.
Sure, I'm glad you're happy to be home. But it won't last for
ever. You know it won't, Captain. You'll be moving on and then
you'll need me again. I'm your friend. I worship the ground you
tread on. I admire you to death, and that's a compliment because
I know everything about you, and admire you all the more. Why
should we part? And as to this police business, you know that's
nonsense. Think I'd give away your secrets, Captain? Why, no--not
to save my own skin. But in a police court, under pressure,
things come out by accident. They're devils for catching you.
We're too old friends to part and that's the truth.'

Nicholas' gaze softened.

'You play your game cleverly, don't you, Abel? I admire you
for it. You're one of those men with only one purpose in
life--not like my dear relations, clogged up with
sentiment--never knowing what they want. All the same it's
true--this time. I've settled down. I don't want you round any
more. You can try all your tricks, blackmail me as you like, but
you get no more out of me. I'm settling down. You don't belong in
this world where I am now.'

Their meal was finished. Abel peeled a dry wizened little
apple, set his teeth into it and waved his hand in the air.

'We'll leave it, Captain,' he said. 'I quite understand what
you're feeling. I shan't be in your way. Just a pound or two to
keep me alive and in return you haven't a friend like me--not one
anywhere who'd do for you what I'd do for you.'

'No, I believe you. You'd cut my throat for twopence.' His
lazy indifference so strangely mixed in him with his passion for
interference crept about him. 'I mean it though. You'll soon see
that I do. Our ways are parting.'

'Yes. Very good,' said Abel, smiling. 'But not to-night. We go
and see Mrs. Agar--yes?'

Mrs. Agar lived with the old Russian, Mme. Litvinoff, in an
apartment in Clarges Street, next door to a restaurant.

Her rooms were very charming, quiet and in the best of taste.
Over the mantelpiece was a very warm ruddy flower-piece by
Matthew Smith. There was a piano (for she played admirably), two
or three excellent pieces of old furniture, and a fine Persian
rug of dark purple with a border of small orange flowers.

She herself was as quiet a woman as you ever would find, a
tall figure, dark brown hair, a pale, kindly and rather gentle
face. She had blackmailed a number of people in her time,
including a famous Cabinet Minister, an Admiral and a very rich
Lancashire manufacturer. She was responsible for at least three
suicides and had broken up a number of very happy homes. She had
never herself been in any trouble, enjoyed life to the full, felt
affection for all the world and never said unkind things about
anyone.

When Nicholas and Abel came in there were also present Mme.
Litvinoff and a fat, cheery, jolly-looking man called John
Flagstaffe. Mme. Litvinoff looked like an old, wizened, wrinkled
monkey. She was beautifully dressed and wore a necklace of small
fine pearls round her skinny throat. She smoked cigarettes
incessantly from a long amber holder. She had a sharp cracked
voice and spoke with a foreign accent. Flagstaffe, who was as
good a confidence trickster, blackmailer, card-sharper and pimp
as there was in London, beamed good-nature. He had once 'done
time,' but it was a long while ago, and he had, with the greatest
friendliness in the world, forgiven everyone concerned in the
affair.

Nicholas detested him. He didn't like old Litvinoff either. In
fact this company was altogether too low for him and he despised
himself for being there. Mrs. Agar, however, attracted him more
powerfully than any woman he had met since Dora Lenning two years
ago in Rome. Women were, of course, his great weakness. He knew
it well and was quite philosophical about it. It annoyed him,
however, that at his age and with all his experience he should
once again feel this temptation to submission. What he hoped was
that a little intimacy with Mrs. Agar would cure him.

There had been no sign as yet that Mrs. Agar (whose Christian
name was Beatrice) wished to be his friend. And he felt
instinctively that she despised him for his companionship with a
rat like Abel.

To-night, however, everyone was very friendly. Flagstaffe had
a passion for music and especially for Mozart. He was talking
about him now. He lay back in his chair, his fat round thighs
stretched against the blue stuff of his trousers, his cheery face
lost in a tender happy smile.

'Oh yes, there's nothing like the G minor Quintet. That's the
best of the whole lot. The loveliest piece of music in the whole
world. You know--with the two violas. Tum-te-tum-te-tum-te-tum.'
He beat on his stomach with his fingers. 'The fourth
movement--the Adagio--my God! that's the most tragic thing that
ever was. And then the Allegro at the end--sheer happiness. And
he was only thirty-one when he composed it! Marvellous! To know
so much about life. Or the songs--the Abendempfindung. Go
on, Beatrice. . . . Just play the theme--you
know--tum-te-tum-te-tum . . .'

Mrs. Agar smiled. 'What a bully you are, Johnnie! All right.
But only for a minute.'

She sat down at the piano and played the
Abendempfindung, humming softly, and then An
Chloë, then slipping into the last movement of the G
minor Quintet. . . . Then she rose abruptly, shutting gently the
lid of the piano.

Flagstaffe dragged himself out of his chair and stood, his big
bulk slightly swaying, humming to himself the
Chloë.

'What are you off to?' Nicholas asked, looking up at him,
thinking what an ox of a creature he was, seeing him bend forward
very slightly and take the throat of a man kneeling on the carpet
in front of him and slowly, slowly squeeze it. What man? Oh, any
man.

'Never mind,' Flagstaffe said, laughing. 'We're off to amuse
ourselves. We leave you to do the same.'

When they were gone and the three who remained had talked a
litttle while longer, Nicholas said to Abel:

'Don't forget, my friend, you have also your
engagement. It's quarter to ten. You'll be late.'

Abel had no engagement, except to be near his admired
Nicholas. For a moment Nicholas thought that he would disobey.
His forehead was quite suddenly covered with little wrinkles as a
pool is fretted by a breeze. Nicholas had often seen this before
and it was impossible to explain to himself why it was so
obscenely unpleasant. It meant that Abel's temper was disturbed.
He did indeed hesitate--but then, without another word, with only
a nod of good-night, departed.

So they were alone, sitting in front of the fire. Mrs. Agar
produced a work-basket and a round frame upon which she was
working a gaily coloured tapestry of birds and flowers.

'I envy you that,' Nicholas said. 'How silly that it should be
thought effeminate for men to do needlework.'

'Is it?' she asked. 'Quite a lot of men do.'

'Oh yes, I suppose so. I had forgotten that the sexes are
changing.'

'Are they?' She looked at him with her large, quiet, beautiful
eyes. 'Captain Coventry--why do you have that awful little man
around with you?'

He crossed his legs. 'Abel? Is he so awful? Ah, he's mixed up
with my past.'

'Yes, but one gets rid of one's past when it's as unpleasant
as that.'

'He's difficult to get rid of,' Nicholas said quietly. Then,
his hand lying over the edge of the chair until it almost touched
her knee, he said: 'You know--I think Flagstaffe is quite as
nasty as Abel--nastier. Abel would cut your throat for a
shilling, but until he did so he would be loyal. He's seen me
through a good many nasty places. But Flagstaffe is, I should
imagine, loyal to nobody.'

'Oh, John!' She bit off a piece of bright blue thread. 'I know
how to manage John. His faults, habits,
weaknesses--whatever you like to call them--are so simple. Once
you know them you know him. But your friend--you
could never be sure of him. He's another species. He's one of the
very few men I've ever been afraid of.' Then she laughed. 'But
don't let's waste this pleasant hour. Do you know, you interest
me very much, Captain Coventry?'

'I'm honoured,' he said, making a little mock bow. His fingers
touched the stuff of her dress.

'No, I mean it. May I be frank?'

'Please.'

'Well, then--you look so conventionally English. You are
living, you told me the other day, with your sister and her
family, who are, you say, most conventional. You like living
there. And yet--there is Abel and, I should imagine, a most
unconventional past.'

'Is there anything strange about it? I can tell you at
once. It's the contrast that I enjoy. The two worlds, one
threatening the other. I like to see what is going on in both--to
see one being invaded by the other. Just as Flagstaffe enjoys
Mozart and has gone off this evening to--what has he gone to
do?'

'I don't know,' she said. 'I never ask questions. Yes, I see.
That's interesting. And your sister and her family--do they
realize what is happening?'

'Who knows what they realize! It's their complacency, I
suppose, that stirs me up. I like to disturb it.'

She moved away from him a little, bending over her
tapestry.

'In what way are they complacent?' she asked.

'No. That's the wrong word. They're not complacent, they're
blind. They can't see that all the things they believe in are no
longer there.'

'What for instance?' she asked.

'Oh, patriotism, the family, religion.'

'I wonder whether they are gone. The Russians, the
Italians, the Germans--they're patriotic enough. Sometimes it
seems to me that just now it's only the English who are not. The
family? Yes, people are more restless certainly. And religion?
Many people are still very religious.'

He moved his legs. 'Oh, I don't know. Let's say they still
believe in goodness, that there's a God who watches over them,
that the best man wins--'

It happened that on this same afternoon Charles Carlisle had
returned home about six. He went up to see his mother, who was
kept to her room by her rheumatism. The old lady was in no very
good temper. Her left leg jagged her with pain as though it had a
personal grievance against her. It had quite suddenly occurred to
her that afternoon that she might, sooner or later, have to die.
So fine had her physical health always been, and so easily had
she obtained her wishes and satisfied her needs, that she had
never actively considered herself as mortal. Of course one day
she would go--everyone did--but not until she was ready
and had informed Death that, tired of the present set of
circumstances, he might now, with her gracious permission, carry
her off to another.

Then, reading the memoirs of Madame Roland and revelling in
the Abbaye and the tumbrils, quite without warning, a voice
seemed to shout from somewhere: 'Off with her head!' The pain in
her leg leapt at her and gave her a terrible twisting. The book
dropped to the floor and she found that she was very near to
tears. Death! It was absurd! To be nothing! the seasons
proceeding with their indifferent punctuality, motor-cars
crowding the streets, people shopping, feeding, drinking,
sleeping, herself forgotten, the very furniture of this house
outlasting her!

She was a strong-minded old lady and it did not take her long
to summon her resources and put Death where he belonged--but,
after this moment, her security was gone. . . .

She had always regarded herself as important. It mattered to
the world in general that she should be there. Now she saw
clearly that it did not matter in the least; it did not even
matter to her immediate family. They would go on perfectly
without her. She badly wanted company and so was very glad indeed
when she saw her son come in.

'How are you, mother?' he asked her, sitting down beside
her.

'Very well indeed, thank you, Charles.'

'Is your leg troubling you?'

'Not in the least.' (Aren't I? said her leg, and shot her a
severe twist.) Her face trembled in spite of herself and Charles
saw it, but of course gave no sign.

'What have you been doing?' she asked.

'I've been having a talk with Bentley.' Bentley was a
stockbroker. 'Things are bad and don't look like getting any
better. If only the Americans would hurry on with their beastly
election--'

'Oh, the Americans!' She spoke as though they were a savage
tribe in Central Africa. She had no use at all for the Americans,
knowing--like most of her compatriots--nothing at all about
America. 'I've no patience with the Americans,' she said.

'Whether we've got any patience with them or not, we're all in
the same boat. We depend on them and they depend on us.'

'I don't know what's coming to the world,' she said
restlessly. 'Or this house either.'

'Why, what's the matter with the house?' he asked,
laughing.

'That's the worst of you, Charles. You go about with your eyes
shut. Why don't you say something to Fanny?'

'Why--what's the matter with Fanny?'

'I'm sure her temper's very queer. She was very short with me
yesterday. Very short indeed. She takes advantage of my leg being
bad.'

'I'm sure she doesn't,' Charles said indignantly. 'Fanny's all
right.'

'Is she?' The old lady tossed her head. 'Everyone's
been noticing how queer her temper is. Why, you yourself said
after that evening when she was so rude to Mary Pontifex--'

'Oh, that's ages ago. And Mary deserved what she got.'

She laid her hand on his arm.

'I know what I'm talking about. I'm not a fool. Nicholas came
in to see me last evening--'

'Oh yes, and what's Nicholas been saying?' he asked
sharply.

She grinned, tapping her dress with her old dry fingers.

'I like Nicholas. He amuses me. He's got no conscience, no
conscience at all, and his little Lizzie knows the most dreadful
things. I wonder Fanny trusts Edward with her--'

Old Mrs. Carlisle adored her son, worshipped him, thought he
could do no wrong. But if she had a little criticism of
him it was that he was too cheerful and complacent. He just went
along with his wood-carving and his walks and his worship of
Fanny as though everything were eternally for the best. So she
was pleased now when she saw that she had disturbed him.

'How can I remember what Nicholas said? He's always making a
joke about something.'

'No, but about Fanny? What did he say about Fanny?'

'Oh, nothing particular. But his two sisters seem very quaint
to him, I'm sure. Remember, he's known them longer than we have,
Charles. I've always said that Fanny and Grace and Matthew have
got a lot in common--a family similarity. As though when they
were children they did nothing but read the Bible and learn
Collects. Now don't be angry, Charles. You know that I'm very
fond of Fanny although I don't think she's good enough for you. I
never did.'

'She's too good for me,' said Charles. 'The longer I live with
her the more I marvel at her goodness, her kindness--'

'Oh yes, we know all about that,' his mother interrupted
sharply. 'You're something of a simpleton too, Charles, not to
have discovered after all these years that no woman likes another
woman to be praised to her face, not even an old woman like me.
However, what I wanted to say is that Nicholas knows something
about Grace that amuses him very much. I tried to get it out of
him, but he said it was a secret. He knows something about Nell
too.'

'Nell?' Charles cried. 'What can he possibly know about
Nell?'

'I've no idea, but you can take my word that Nicholas and that
Lizzie know things about all of us. Fanny didn't realize what she
was doing when she brought him into the house.'

'She hasn't been quite so well lately,' Charles went on,
almost to himself. 'I don't know why. She wants to economize and
it isn't easy in a house like this.'

Then she saw that he was really disturbed, her dear Charles,
her adored Charles. She loved his thinning hair and his eyes
wrinkled with kindness and his broad straight back and his rosy
cheeks. Everything about him she loved as though she were bathing
him in a small round bath in front of the fire, a thing that she
had done, it seemed to her, only yesterday.

So she kissed him and held his strong firm hand in her own hot
thin one, forgetting her leg and the thought of imminent
death.

After leaving her, in the lower hall Charles met Romney. He
saw that he had his hat and coat.

'Hullo, going out?'

'Yes, father. I'm dining with a man.'

They stood there smiling. They were very fond of one another.
Charles thought his son a good-looking young man with a wonderful
knowledge of pictures and a warm heart. Romney loved his father
very much more deeply than he knew.

'Sold anything to-day?' Charles asked him.

'No. Things are getting difficult. No one's got any money for
expensive pictures. We're going to have a show soon of young
painters and everything's going to be very cheap.'

Charles saw that he was impatient to be gone.

'Well, enjoy yourself. Going to the theatre?'

'Oh no. Just having dinner.'

'Good night, then.'

'Good night, father.'

Harry Rait, with whom Romney was dining, had rooms in St.
James's Street, very nice rooms above Rumpelmayer's. This
engagement had been fixed a week ago, and ever since it had been
made Romney had been expecting to hear Rait's voice on the
telephone, saying: 'Most awfully sorry, old man, but I quite
forgot that I had promised . . .'

But this time it had not occurred. Romney had himself rung
Rait up that morning to remind him, and Rait had answered: 'Why,
of course, old man. Everything's prepared--sumptuous meats,
gorgeous wines--'

Romney cut him short with:

'We won't go out anywhere, will we? I want to talk.'

'Right-oh,' Rait had answered.

But Romney had fancied that there had been an echo of
disappointment in the air. Harry liked to go to a musical show or
a boxing-match.

'I'm not great at talking,' he said. And it was true.

However, to-night there Harry Rait was fixed into his own
room, no escape possible. Romney wanted to talk to him. He
wanted to explain, if he could without making a fool of himself,
why it was that Harry meant so much to him. He wanted to explain
it to himself and so rid himself of some of the uncertainties and
fears and perplexities that had worried him so deeply during
these last months.

Over and over again he had thought to himself of what he would
say to Rait, of the way in which he would overcome his own
shyness so that he could break down the barrier that existed
between them. For there was a barrier. It came partly from
Rait's own dislike to speak of his feelings and partly from
Romney's sensitiveness. For Romney was so easily repulsed. In his
heart he felt that no one could really like him and that his
loneliness was a just thing, only what he truly deserved. And yet
if someone did care for him, how much that affection would
do for him! It would destroy his self-distrust. With Harry behind
him, believing in him, he could, he thought, do almost anything!
If he showed Harry this it might be that Harry, reticent though
he was, would give some sign of his own affection for him. A very
little sign would be enough.

But he must be careful. Harry hated scenes or any emotional
display. Romney had no intention of being emotional. Very calm
and matter-of-fact he intended to be. Crossing the Park he saw
the clouds flying along like yachts in a race. Or rather, like
herons, he thought, and one cloud had so long and eager a neck
that it must surely soon break. And it did so. Just as it broke,
the pale evening sky of the colour of watered milk seemed to
quiver above the Park trees as though it hoped that it would
blaze with a miraculous sunset. There was no blaze, and the
wind-darkening expanse swept the grass, the little chairs, the
stubborn trees, the loiterers, into a world where life must now,
for many an hour, be secret.

As Romney passed St. James's Palace he decided to change his
life. He must become somebody. Why live otherwise? He raised his
head. St. James's Street ran uphill in front of him as though it
would lure him into the delights of Piccadilly--' We are sober
here. Tobacco, boots and shoes, Clubs. Dull things for a young
man in these times.' The lamps threw into relief the silver-grey
of the Palace walls, shabby a little perhaps, smelling of
spiritual smoke, echoing (but very faintly now) the thunder of
history.

It was plain enough that Harry saw no reason, in earth or in
heaven, for contemplating, in his personal instance, any
change. Everything in his rooms, even to the round brown shining
jar of tobacco, was rooted to the soil. There were no mental
microbes here, but an exceedingly healthy mind, and Romney knew
at once that this was what he needed, these solid leather
armchairs, this row of pipes, each pipe in its little hole, these
coloured prints on a brown-papered wall of riders leaping hedges,
rosy-faced men in ditches, and hounds streaming across a field,
this fireplace with white and brown tiles, this piano that quite
obviously was never opened unless songs from the Harrow song-book
were to be played on it!

Harry himself! Yes, this was what Romney wanted for
friendship; here was someone whom Romney could admire, a man made
out of the bulwarks of England, square and set, ruddy with
country walks and golf played as the priests once served the
Oracle--no doubts, no awful moments, no mystical sloppiness, no
Freudian dreams, no denial of man but no affirmation of him
either--here was the friend that Romney needed. All through
dinner, which was plain and good (but the wine was rather
ordinary although Romney drank a good deal of it), Harry was as
kind as kind could be.

There was always, when he was with Romney, a slight suggestion
of humouring the convalescent, as though Romney had but recently
come out of hospital, was well on the road to recovery; sea-air
(if he could only be persuaded to take it) would put him right.
This was a quite genuine kindness in Rait. He regarded artists of
every kind as a physical culturist regards invalids. When he met
an author (and this wasn't often) he would say, in the
friendliest fashion, 'Writing anything?' and when they replied
(as they always did) that they were, he would cry, 'Good. That's
the stuff to give them!'

So now, in this same manner, he asked Romney over the mutton
and roast potatoes how the pictures were getting on, and when
Romney said not so awfully well because no one had any money just
now, he frowned with kind concern and added: 'Of course, old man,
they do ask the most dreadful prices for things I wouldn't go
into the next room to see. And they do these reproductions damned
well nowadays. This modern colour photography has fairly got
pictures whacked in my opinion.'

Romney loved to hear him. Harry was so honest, so true--no
humbug or pose or affectation. Romney had every day so much of
the other thing. He watched Harry while he cut the bread. It was
like Siegfried forging the sword.

'I hope,' he said, 'you don't mind our staying in
to-night.'

'Not a bit, old man. Not a bit. There is some of that all-in
wrestling at the Ring that I thought we might have gone to, but
they have it every Thursday. No, as a matter of fact, I'm a bit
weary if the truth be known. I was at Sunningdale all the
afternoon--went round with the Pro. Jolly useful man. How are
your people?'

'All right, thanks.'

'That's good. Don't you get a bit sick of living at home
though?'

'No, I don't think so.'

'Well, I should. Not that I'm not fond of my people, you know.
I often go down to see them. But it isn't quite like being on
your own. Shall we move into the other room?'

Seated in the leather armchair Romney looked at his friend
with apprehension. He had read somewhere that when people come
and talk to you about their aspirations you had better, before
they leave you, count your silver spoons. He felt that already
Harry was counting his spoons.

'Well, now tell me all about yourself,' Rait said, sitting
down, filling his pipe from the enormous tobacco-jar.

'Oh, there's nothing much to say about myself. I'm getting
along all right.'

'Is that uncle of yours still with you?'

'Oh yes.'

'Bit of a cynic, isn't he?--from what you told me.'

'Not a cynic exactly--but he's travelled a lot and of course
we must seem rather old-fashioned in some ways.'

'I don't like those cynical chaps,' Rait said. 'Always downing
everything. There was a chap this afternoon--Thatcher he's
called--thin hungry-looking sort of bloke. Wanted me to go round
with him, but I knew better. He's a holy terror. Thinks Russia
grand and all that sort of thing. I said to him the other day,
"They wouldn't let you play golf like this in Moscow." And he
said, "Their climate's different." The man's an imbecile.'

There was a pause.

Rait said: 'All right, old man? Got everything you want? Have
a whisky?'

'Not just yet, thanks,' Romney said. Then he plunged.

'Look here, Harry. I'm glad we haven't gone out to-night.
There's something I've been wanting to say for a long time. You
don't mind my talking a bit, do you?'

'Of course not.' Rait looked at him with the benevolence that
was most genuinely part of his nature. He liked to help his
friends and he liked to know that he helped them.

'Anything I can do?' he said. 'You're not in a mess with a
woman, are you?'

'You see, we're so very different. I sometimes think that it
must be a bore for you having me for a friend.'

'Not a bit, old man--of course not,' said Rait generously.

'We're so different. All our tastes are different. I think
that's why I like you so much.'

'That's all right, old chap,' said Rait. 'We're damned good
friends and I'm glad we are.'

'Are you?' said Romney eagerly. 'That's what I wanted to
know--if you are really fond of me. It will make a
tremendous difference to me if you are.'

Rait bent down and relit his pipe.

'Why, of course I'm fond of you,' he said. 'We're pals--that's
what we are. And when men are pals there's nothing more to be
said, is there? What I mean is that if a man's your pal he can be
away for years and you never see him or write or anything, and
then when you meet again you pick it up just where you left
off.'

'Yes, that's just what I mean,' Romney said quickly. 'That
doesn't seem to me friendship. Friendship's something that has to
live, has to be fed all the time. You've got to know one another
better and better, find out one another's faults and like one all
the better for them. If you never see your friend or write to
him, I don't see that that's friendship.'

'Do have a whisky, old man,' Rait said. 'Help yourself.'

'Yes, I think I will,' Romney said.

He got up and knew that his legs were trembling. His impulse
was to say good-night and go. He was making a terrible mess of
this. He would write a letter instead. But he helped himself to a
strong whisky, drank it while he was standing there. Then he
poured himself out another. Now he felt better. He knew what he
wanted to say. He pulled his chair nearer to Rait's and sat
down.

'I've been wanting to say this for ages, Harry. You've no idea
what you mean to me. Of course I love my father and mother and
sister, but outside them you're the only person in the world I
care for. I know that it's bad form for Englishmen to show their
feelings. I'm shy as anything myself. But sometimes one
has to speak out when it's so terribly important. Well,
you are terribly important to me. I'm pretty lonely really. I
don't make friends easily. I pretend to have lots of confidence
but that isn't real. If you believe in me and are fond of me I
could do almost anything--or that's what I feel. You're strong in
all the ways I'm not. You could help me a most awful lot. Don't
be angry with me for talking like this. I think of you so much
when you're not there. There's nothing in the world I wouldn't do
for you if you'd let me. I promise not to bother you with this
sort of talk again, but I had to know how you feel. I couldn't go
on without knowing.'

There was a silence. Then Rait said:

'What you want, old boy, is a woman. You'd be less lonely
then.'

'No, no!' Romney cried eagerly. 'Don't you see that this isn't
sexual? That's why it's so hard to put into words what I mean.'
He stopped for a moment to make his words simple and direct.
'Have you ever heard of a writer called Lawrence?' he asked.

'He chivied the Arabs or something, didn't he?' Rait said.

'No. That's another Lawrence. This one was a novelist and a
poet. He died a couple of years ago.'

'I don't read novels,' Rait said. 'I don't seem to have the
time.'

'Yes--well--that doesn't matter. I'd only read one, called
The Plumed Serpent, and thought it grand. Then I read a
life of him by someone and hated him. Then the other day Uncle
Nicholas--the one I've told you about--advised me to read
Women in Love. Well, that's got superb things in it. Of
course there's a lot of mad sex stuff in it, but there's one bit
about a man riding a horse that's frightened by a passing train.
. . . You'd think that first-class. I know you would.'

'I must read it,' Rait said politely. 'What do you say it's
called?'

'Women in Love.'

'Women in Love. I'll get it from the Library. I belong
to Harrods, but I haven't taken a book out for ages.'

'In Women in Love,' Romney went on eagerly, 'there's an
extraordinary scene. There are two men in the book who are in
love with two women, or rather the women are with them. One of
these men, who's really Lawrence himself, is very fond of the
other man and he wants to find some relationship with him that
goes beyond physical things. He's sure that somewhere there
can be a relationship between human beings that's perfect,
but sex gets in the way of it and spoils it. One evening these
men are in a library alone and they strip and wrestle. They
wrestle until their bodies are all in. They get beyond
their bodies. And for a moment they do touch this further
relationship.'

'My God!' said Rait. 'Do you mean they take their clothes off
and wrestle in a library?'

'Yes,' said Romney. 'You see--'

'But why a library? Damned odd place to wrestle in. They must
have been batty.'

'Oh, never mind the library!' Romney said. 'Anywhere would
have been the same.'

'It wouldn't have been if the police had been around,' said
Rait.

'Yes, but what I want to say is this--I feel for you the best,
the finest things any man can feel for another. I'm sure that we
could have a friendship that would reach that state that Lawrence
means. I think that all men will reach it one day and that it's
the only hope of the world. If we all think nobly of one
another--' He stopped. He got up.

'Oh, I don't know. Of course you think I'm talking rot.'

'Not a bit, old man. Not a bit,' Rait said.

Romney came and sat on the broad, shiny shoulder of Rait's
chair. He put his arm round his friend.

'I'd die for you if you wanted me to,' he said huskily.

Now there was a very long silence indeed. Rait did not move.
The clock struck quarter to ten. The silence grew ever more
appalling. Then Romney moved from the chair. He stood looking
into the fire.

At last Rait said: 'That's all right, old chap. Of course I'm
not a sentimental man. I keep that for women.' He knocked his
pipe against his shoe. After a while he said: 'Why don't you join
Sunningdale?'

'I'm afraid I hate golf.'

'Oh, you shouldn't. It's the grandest game out. When you're
bringing your handicap down it gives you something to think
about, I can tell you.'

There was another long silence. Then Rait said:

'I went to Casanova again the other night. That's the
third time. Have you been yet?'

'No, I haven't,' said Romney.

'Oh, you ought to. The dancing is damned good.' Rait mentioned
one or two other plays. Then at last Romney, coming away from the
fireplace, said:

'Well, it's time I was off.' He smiled brightly.

Rait got up and, very slowly, knocked his pipe out against the
tiles of the fireplace.

'You haven't minded my talking like this?' asked Romney.

'Why, no, of course not, old man. Say anything you like. He
must be a queer writer, that chap. What did you say the book was
called?'

'Women in Love.'

'Women in Love. Pretty thick some of it, I expect. I
must read it.'

After another pause Romney moved towards the passage.

'Have another whisky, old man.'

'No, thanks,' Romney said. He put on his coat. 'Thanks for a
ripping evening,' he said.

I have always felt a very real sympathy with those authors who
feel it their duty to say something about the weather. When I say
author I mean novelist, for it is a sign of these stupid and
exasperating times that every lady over thirty reads six novels
rather than one short poem, and this has the odd result that
poets to-day must call their beautiful poems novels in order to
have them read at all.

So that it is novelists, or poets disguised as novelists, for
whom I feel sympathy when they are compelled to write about the
weather. For they will be abused whatever they do, they will be
told that they have arranged the weather as a suitable garment
for the emotions of their characters--Egdon Heath itself has been
reminded that it is too subservient to the emotions of the
reddleman.

For myself, I believe that the creator of human beings is also
compelled at one and the same time to create the weather. In
Lear, who made the storm? Would there have been a story
worth telling had there been that night an anti-cyclone
stretching from the Azores to the Duke of Gloucester's castle?
The gods, whom Lear so constantly evokes, doubtless in a fit of
idle peevishness, provided the storm, and the leader of these
gods was Shakespeare himself, bringing with him his own very
special and splendid lightning and thunder.

No one can deny how deeply, into the very farthest nooks and
crannies of our souls, we are influenced by weather--that is, all
the sensitive ones among us; and what novelist but deals
principally in sensitive souls?

For all this, let the novelist darken his skies and his
heroes' spirits at one and the same time and he will be told that
he has done it for effect. He has done it, all you nincompoops,
because it was so. It is high time that someone spoke out on this
business, for we have had years now of this pretence that a man
(and a woman also) is arranging and manipulating a series of
events and consequences in order to obtain praise, money, the
envy of relations, the chance of pillorying a dear friend, the
filling in of some intolerably boring hours.

On the contrary, the creator is led by the hand and shown a
marvellous congregation of persons, facts, themes, ideas, crimson
sunsets, intolerable critics, meals of champagne and oysters,
grubbing in the ash-bin, the moon obstinately rising,
indigestions and cancers, stealing money from a blind man and
leaving five thousand pounds to the local hospital, God in His
glory and the rabbit quivering in his trap--all this and more,
far, far more, he is shown. He may select what he will, and
according to the kind of creature that he is, so he will make his
selection. Yes, indeed, he will select wrongly, stupidly,
blindly, arrogantly, because none of us is perfect, and even
Shakespeare could write of Gloucester's eyes with savagery worse
than Goneril's.

But the matter is from God--storms and icicles and the
cowardly fears in man's heart and his reckless, daring audacity.
Let's have done with this pretence, my dear friends and ignorant
babblers, that man is the creator. God is the creator and man the
blundering, blind selector of the material that God offers to
him. Nor, friends, need we blush when we speak of God now that,
in our stories, we make so free with water-closets. We are brave
enough these days to venture anything.

And so it is with the weather. If my friend, my dear brother,
my novelist companion, brings, after all the adroit dealing
possible to his talent, his hero and heroine into a lasting
embrace, do not chide him because the moon, like a blossom from a
Japanese plum-tree, is rising above the milk-white line of hill,
or, when the villain of the piece (who is blameless, because it
is Freud who has made him) brings the widow and the orphan with
sorrow to the grave, the country lanes should be ankle-deep in
mud and a thin rain hiss upon the iron roof of the Methodist
chapel. These things are so, and true love can make any moon
cherry-coloured, and a thunder-storm provokes malignity in the
most generous of breasts.

So (for I will not deny that these plain truths have been
provoked out of self-defence) it was with all the human beings
gathered together in the Westminster house--with Mrs. Baldwin and
Janet and Rose the parlourmaid, with Charles and Fanny and Grace,
with Edward and Lizzie, with Romney and Nell, with Matthew and
Becky Sharp, with old Mrs. Carlisle and Captain Nicholas
Coventry.

For it happened that on a certain afternoon and evening
towards the end of September of this year 1932 a terrible storm
broke over London--terrible because it had thunder at its heart,
and the sky, busy with its own private quarrel, dropped lower and
lower above the town, lying with the weight of all its malignant
power upon the brains and eyes and hearts and entrails of
millions of men, women and children who touched suddenly the hand
of the Devil himself, without knowing their dark neighbour.

It is but seldom that citizens look up at the sky in
London--they have so many other things to do. For one thing, they
carry their life in their hands. For another, there are many
bag-snatchers. When, however, the heavens are black, the houses
shine with a white unwholesome radiance as though struck with
leprosy. Then you look up and say that a storm is coming.

London is brave enough, but more than most cities it cowers
beneath a threatened storm. The trees in the Park shiver, the
dusky sheep huddle together, the traffic rises to a scream, and
the cinema-houses are suddenly crowded.

This especial storm struck the town about three of the
afternoon. The thunder rumbled, at first nonchalantly as though
behind the walls of the Ritz, the lodging-houses in Bloomsbury,
the tenements in the Old Kent Road, every one had been inspired
to move the furniture.

Then there is a clap--Jehovah ordering the curtain to rise.
Then the thin, delighted patter of the rain and the scurry of
hastening feet. Somewhere a young lady in a shop plucking the
eyebrows of another young lady says: 'Here comes the rain, Madam.
It will be cooler now.'

Above St. James's Park the sky is as black as ink, and birds,
flying, have wings of silver; the water of the lake is flurried
with little dark lines. Lower and lower comes the leaden sky.
Hurrying to a doorway you bend your head as though the expected
blow will be averted by that submission. Then the thunder breaks
and the rain falls in sheeted steely splendour.

This was the second day after Romney's evening with Rait.
There was, it seemed, little eagerness, that afternoon, on the
part of the millionaires to buy pictures, and so he made an
excuse and went home early. This was because he thought that
there might be a letter from Harry waiting for him.

All yesterday, all to-day, he had thought of nothing but this.
At every ring of the telephone he had started from his chair.
This was foolish, for Harry was dilatory. He would not write; he
would not telephone unless it were to say that he was otherwise
engaged. He never did. But Romney, allowing his imagination to
spring up like the glorious Phoenix, had now created from the
ashes of that barren evening something of the fairest beauty. It
was true that the evening had, on the surface, been a failure,
but, he told himself, he knew Harry so well. His friend was
undemonstrative (and Romney would not have him otherwise). The
things that Romney had said would be very new to him and at the
first contact he would shrink. But afterwards, going over them in
his mind, considering their true meaning, he would begin to
realize that here was something offered to him that he had never
known--a loyalty, an intimacy so rare amongst men that it would
never come to him again. Romney did not pretend that he himself
was anyone extraordinary to have for a friend. Far from it. But
the thing that he offered was extraordinary--a friendship without
self-seeking, pure, honest, unselfish, without anything base. . .
. Here (for he was hastening home to escape the storm) he
laughed. What a silly, priggish colour he was giving to it! Let
him content himself with his intentions and leave the rest to
develop as it might. Nevertheless, passing under the archway and
entering the quiet, reserved patience of the Abbey precincts, he
could not prevent a little glow of happiness. It had seemed at
the time a failure, but now he was glad that he had spoken as he
did. Next time it would be easier. Harry himself would have more
courage and would show him where especially he could help. And
he, on his side, would forget his shyness and would be free, as
he had never been with anyone, to formulate his ideals, to
prophesy how man might be noble again, might . . . Here the
thunder clapped, as it seemed, right above his head, and the
little street appeared to rock under the sudden onslaught of the
rain. He ran, pulled his key from his pocket and, his cheek cool
and fresh with the raindrops, let himself into the house. The
hall was so dark that he switched on the light, then saw that
there was a letter addressed in Harry's hand waiting on the
table. He snatched it, tore off the envelope, and read:

DEAR ROMNEY--This is not an easy letter to write, but I have
been thinking things over for twenty-four hours and have come to
the conclusion that we had better not meet again. I have for a
long time felt that we were not well suited as friends because
our tastes and interests are so very different. I am a plain
ordinary sort of chap as you must have long recognized.

After the other evening I realize very clearly that our lives
are going different ways. I hope, Romney, that you won't think
too badly of me if I give you a word of advice. Some of the
things you said the other evening would be misunderstood by most
men although of course it's all right with me. You find a nice
girl, Romney, and you'll be all right.

Wishing you the best of luck always--Yours,

H. R.

He heard a step and, looking up, saw that his mother was
coming down the stairs.

It had long ago occurred to Fanny that especial excuses,
attentions, ceremonials, observances, seemed to attend, in this
world, everyone but herself. For example, Mary Pontifex might be
outrageously rude and people would say: 'Oh, well, there's
something in what she said. Mrs. Baxter asked for it.' But did
she, Fanny, for five minutes lose her temper in her own house,
the effects of it continued to reverberate down the ages. She had
always been one of those to whom her friends, her husband, her
children spoke frankly. That again caused her to wonder. What
was it about her that invited this frankness (so swiftly
converted into personal rudeness!) when with others friends and
relations walked as though on egg-shells? It was not that she had
not, when she liked, a very pretty temper and could not snap back
at the best of them. But there seemed to be two different ways of
losing your temper--either you shattered the universe and caused
those in your company to swear that never, oh, never again would
they risk such a terrifying experience--or simply you made your
friends a little shy, uncomfortable and sorry for you. Fanny's
temper was of the second kind. So it happened that it was her
common experience that someone should say to her: 'You know,
Fanny, you must not be so sensitive! Why, the other day at
the Moults', when that awful young man with the rabbit teeth who
writes told you you knew nothing about modern poetry, you blushed
like a schoolgirl! But of course you know nothing about
modern poetry. You never read . . .' Why, thought Fanny, does she
say all this to me? She wouldn't dare say it to the Frobisher
woman, nor to anyone else I know. What is it about me . .
.?

Whatever it was, it was clear enough that even her own
children now treated her rudely, brushed past her on the stairs,
did not answer. . . . But Romney was upset, and not by herself,
but by some letter that he had been reading. Romney was in
trouble.

Once more, as so often, so often in the past, she must check,
beat down that impulse, the strongest of all things in her, to
hurry after him and help him, comfort him, tell him that she
would stand by him, against the world, against the Devil himself.
. . . But they did not want that, these modern children. They
could, and did, stand up for themselves. What advice could their
mothers give them, the mothers who had grown up in a world where
they were hooded and deceived and sentimentalized, an old
preposterous dead-as-a-cinder world?

Fanny knew that Nell and Romney loved her. She must be content
with what she had. But she could not bear to think of that white,
suffering face of Romney's! What was it that the letter
had done to him? Had some girl rejected him or tantalized him and
laughed at him? Romney had much of her own sensitiveness in him.
He always hated to hurt her (although of late he had not been
quite so careful perhaps!).

She stood there at the bottom of the stairs beating down her
longing to go to him. Then she heard the rain lash the window by
the hall-door. What a storm! How dark it was beyond the window!
The storm attacked the house as though it had some personal spite
against it. She remembered that Edward would be returning from
school and although he had so little a way to go he would be
soaked to the skin. She looked about the hall undecided as to her
next step. She was thinking of Romney, longing to go to him. . .
. How queer a colour the storm stirred beyond the window and how
unnatural the white glare of the electricity! She switched it off
and at the same moment the lightning struck the hall with its
wicked brilliance as a hand slaps a face.

The hall-door opened, a flurry of wind and rain blew in, then
she heard a voice saying:

'Oh, please--I cannot shut it. The wind is too
strong!'

It was Lizzie in a small black hat and a waterproof that
dripped. Fanny switched on the light again and stared for a
moment almost as though she had seen a ghost, so unexpected was
this thin child with the pale face, the long black legs, one wet
lock of black hair falling almost into her sharp burning eyes
from under her hat. It was her eyes that gave her life--but there
was something too in her attitude as she stood now by the door,
lonely, isolated, unhappy. Fanny's heart warmed to the child whom
in all these months she had never in the least understood, of
whom she had been even afraid. Now was her chance perhaps.

'Darling, how wet you are! Come up to the schoolroom, dear,'
Fanny said, 'when you've taken off your wet things. Edward will
be back soon.'

The child nodded and ran up the stairs in front of her. Fanny,
on her way up to the schoolroom, paused at the landing window on
the second floor. The sky, breaking in between the roofs,
chimneys and the high grey face of the Church, was black, with
spaces of white that moved like stirring pools between cliffs of
cloud. The rain came down in a glittering wall against the
arrogant black sky. As she looked a burst of thunder was so loud
that it seemed to shake the floor on which she was standing. It
was like an attack on the city. In the schoolroom she stood
wishing that Edward would come and thinking about Lizzie. It was
very unusual for her spontaneous nature to be for so long in
company with another human being and achieve so slight a contact.
But she was shy of other people's reticences although she gave
herself at once, completely and sometimes rashly, to anyone who
seemed to need her. It had been quite clear through these months
that Lizzie didn't need her, but she felt that behind that
strange silence and self-dependence there was a deep and unhappy
loneliness. This might be, she was fully aware, only another
example of her own sentimental explanations. She was always, like
many affectionate characters, thinking that others were herself
and then finding that they were not.

But in any case she was sure that for Edward's sake she must
try to discover some contact with Lizzie. For Edward and Lizzie
were friends.

The door opened and Lizzie came in.

'Father's having a bath,' she said.

'Is he?' Fanny answered, coming to her. 'What a funny time to
have a bath, in the middle of the afternoon!'

'Yes. He told me through the bathroom door that the weather
was so dirty that he had to do something about it.'

Fanny sat down in the old shabby schoolroom chair, put out her
hand, caught Lizzie's and drew her close to her.

'Do you mind storms?' How thin the child was, how cold her
hand, how pale her face! But the child did not shrink from the
contact--only, as she always did, she held herself upright and
was independent of everyone, everything, herself. . . .

'Lizzie, dear--have you been happy here with us? I've often
wanted to ask you. I want you to be happy.'

Lizzie's black hair was cut in a straight line across the
marble pallor of her forehead. Under this forehead her black eyes
looked out like sentinels flashing steel and so sharply on guard
that you shared their fear of surprise.

As a rule you saw her eyes first and wondered that they could
be so alive and bright, as though she had been crying. But she
never cried. Your second question about her, Mrs. Frobisher, who
was always gaily talking about people with the abandon of a
gramophone record gone wrong, said was--How could a child
be so old for her years? A foolish question, because years as
years have so little to do with age. And the third question
was--Why won't she make friends? She certainly wouldn't make
friends with Mrs. Frobisher, who had all the virtues except
sincerity--an important one in Lizzie's eyes.

But quite suddenly now she made friends with her Aunt Fanny.
It was as though something menacing in the storm, or some private
knowledge she had, stirred her ironic pity and so her
affection.

How could she not be ironic? At any rate now she said,
allowing Fanny's hand to hold hers:

'Yes, of course father and I are more happy in Sicily,
which is the place where we've been most happy of all. Do you not
think, Aunt Fanny, that people in London are not grown up
yet?'

Fanny certainly had not thought it. But there were some
people, of course, who would never grow up. Grace for
example.

'In what way, dear?'

'You see--in Italy and Spain and France no one thinks that
people are not wicked. In England everyone pretends that
people ought to be good. They cannot understand why they are not.
But of course everyone is wicked.'

This was terrible to Fanny. A child so young. And what of her
influence on Edward? And what kind of a man must Nicholas be to
bring up his child thus?

'Oh, but people aren't wicked!' she cried. 'I'm so much older
than you, dear, and although your father has taken you
everywhere, still you must see that people are weak but not
wicked--'

'What do you think wickedness is, Aunt Fanny?'

'To be wicked,' Fanny answered, staring at the window where
the storm now, with a face as black as ink, pressed against the
pane as though it would break it, 'is to do wicked things without
being sorry for them. To want to do wicked things.'

'Yes,' said Lizzie. 'But what are wicked things?'

'Why--my dear--everyone knows.'

'No. Everyone does not, Aunt Fanny. In Syracuse when we lived
there a woman killed another woman because she was jealous, and
everyone thought it fine. In this house if you say "bloody hell"
everyone thinks it wicked. Nobody does in Paris.'

Fanny answered: 'I think that is wicked,
whatever they say in Paris.'

She felt then the child's body tremble under her hand.

'I know what you think I am, Aunt Fanny--what you all
think--all except Edward. Father says it would be better for me
if I had been with other children more, but I don't mind. I am by
myself. Other children are stupid because they believe things
that aren't true. When I grow up I shall believe only what
I see for myself, not what anyone says. I like Edward because he
is honest. I listen in this house to what everyone says, but I
like best to be by myself. When it thundered just now I walked in
the street by myself. That's what I like. . . .'

Fanny kissed her.

'It's terrible to be so alone, darling. Will you talk to me
sometimes as you are doing now? I will never tell you what you
ought to do. Only--don't believe that people are wicked. They
mean to be good--'

The lightning flashed through the room. Everything for an
instant shone with a cold splendour.

'Yes,' Lizzie said. 'I don't mind talking to you, Aunt
Fanny.'

The door opened and Edward came in. His top-hat, his overcoat,
were soaked. He threw them on the floor.

'Oh, gosh!' he cried. 'Did you see the lightning, mother?' He
was delighted. The water shone on his nose.

'Pick up your things, Edward.'

He picked them up. He was grinning with pleasure.

'Take them down to Janet. She'll dry them.'

He danced about, holding the hat and coat. 'It's never going
to stop! I hope it goes on for ever and then the river will
flood. Perhaps it will come into the kitchen.'

Fanny kissed him. She felt his clothes.

'No, you're not wet. That's a good coat we got. Only change
your socks. Now run along and take those things down.'

He made a laughing defiant face at Lizzie. 'You don't have
storms like this in other countries.'

'Of course you do,' Lizzie said. 'Much worse.'

'No, you don't,' said Edward. Then he went.

The pressure of the sky on the house was terrible. Fanny's
head ached as though it were a new head which the storm had
supplied.

'Lizzie, dear,' she said. 'There's one thing. Remember that
Edward is very young for his age and you are old for yours. Don't
tell him things that will make him old too quickly. When you have
children you will want to keep them as long as you can.'

'I think,' Lizzie said, 'that it will be a good thing when
father and I move somewhere else.'

'Oh no--don't say that.'

'It's always a good thing when we move. People never like us
after a little.'

'I shall always like you,' Fanny said quickly.' You can always
come back to me--whatever happens.'

Lizzie, looking at her with an old penetrating stare,
said:

'Yes, Aunt Fanny.'

So, carrying her headache with her like a heavy black parcel
with a bomb inside it, Fanny went to her room to brush her hair.
When her head ached it helped to brush her hair, to wash her face
and hands and to think of something very pleasant. She was aware,
as she sat at her dressing-table, that it was taking her all her
time now to remember pleasant things, and this, she discovered,
was because everyone in the house was developing personalities.
Until six months ago she had loved them all and known them so
well that she took them for granted. Now she was not sure what
any of them might say next.

And she was right, for there was a tap on the door. She said
'Come in,' and there was Janet.

She knew at once that Janet was leaving her. She put down the
brushes and said, with a kind of cry of despair: 'No, Janet, I
can't stand it! This storm is dreadful. I have the most awful
headache.'

'I'm very sorry, mum. I'm behaving badly, I'm sure, but I've
stood it as long as I can.'

'Stood what?' The thunder was rumbling as though they
were moving furniture in distant rooms.

'Well, I'd have told you last time. . . . It's the
Captain.'

'Captain Nicholas? What has he been doing?'

Janet's look of dull determined obstinacy was, as usual,
infuriating.

'Never mind, mum, what he's done. Since he came into the house
last April I've not been wanted. It isn't for him to know, of
course, how I've worked my fingers to the bone, willingly so long
as I was wanted. But he's hated me from the first. I've done my
best for your sake. There's nothing I wouldn't do for you. But
maybe if I go now you'll understand what's happening.'

'Happening? What's happening?'

'It's not for me to say. I'm only a servant.'

'You know you're not only a servant, Janet.'

'That's as may be. Perhaps when I'm out of the house you'll
see you haven't a better friend anywhere.'

Then Fanny, driven by her headache, lost her temper.

'Come, Janet. Tell me what Captain Nicholas has
done.'

'Best leave that, mum. It's sufficient, I'm sure, that he
hates the sight of me, to say nothing of the fact that an hour
ago he called me a tiresome old bitch.'

'Janet!'

'Yes, mum. I wouldn't repeat such words, but you asked
me.'

'He can't have. . . . You must have misunderstood.'

'Not at all, mum. On the way to his bath at three in the
afternoon, wearing one of the master's dressing-gowns--'

'But what had you done? You must have done
something.'

'All I'd done was when he ordered me to go down and
bring him a whisky, I suggested one of the maids--'

The cat, Becky Sharp, felt the storm tingle within her body.
It was part of her and she part of the storm. She moved about the
house in delicate silence, having first watched the rain from her
place at the pantry window, then passing with majesty and pride
into the passage, up the stairs, then, as she always did, pausing
to look at the pair of gold birds on either side of the clock in
the hall (for these would one day be hers; she would tear them
feather from feather), then up the wide staircase, into the
drawing-room, out again, up on to the higher landing that now was
dark, close with the storm, like a box, and smelling faintly of
mice.

Here she stretched out against the wall and licked her black
glistening fur. All her movements were assured, contemptuous,
arrogant. Contemptuous she was, for she despised everyone in this
house. Long ago she had realized that no one in this place had
her own reserve and control. They made noises, rushed hither and
thither, demanded her friendship, were ridiculously pleased when
she purred or rubbed her soft strong body against their persons,
were excited when she drank milk for them, were distressed when
(often for mere boredom) she showed her displeasure. They
delighted in none of the things that were of value, did not lie
in a streak of sun, did not hunt at night, must ever, in their
restlessness, move from a place where it was good to be, could
not concentrate on what was best for themselves and, having found
it, hold to it.

She despised them so deeply that she never thought of them at
all unless they denied her something that was her right or forgot
her necessities. She used them to her advantage but never
considered them.

Her life was immemorial, eternal. Her world was infinity, an
infinity starred with fragments of light, heat, smell, food,
rhythm. Least of all were they aware of her wildness, of the
times when she was primeval, howling in love or battle or lust or
hunger, or drawn tight into a centre of pause before the spring,
concentrated on her kill. Immortal and primeval she perceived the
immortal and primeval instincts. Such instincts now inhabited
this house. Something stirred now in the light and dark, between
the sound and the silence, that had not always been there. With
her consciousness of it grew her pleased participation in it.

All through the house now there was the jungle air. As she
stole softly from wall to wall, her eyes intent, she smelt the
promise of delightful danger and, best of all, the night, dark to
all but her, was now alive when for so long inside the house it
had been so empty. She waited, her eyes shining like green stars.
. . .

Now, unexpectedly, a door opened. Someone came out and almost
stepped on her, but as he passed she caught the smell of a
garment that she knew, a long thick soft garment that was scented
with soap and tobacco, sometimes very dry and warm, sometimes
damp and clammy to her fur. She followed it.

At the end of the passage, just as a roll of thunder drummed
through the walls, the wearer of the garment stayed. Purring, she
rubbed her soft warm body against a naked leg. She looked up,
slanting her eyes, and saw that he was so deeply absorbed,
looking at something, that he did not feel her gentle rhythmic
pressure. Then she was aware that he was possessed of some warm
powerful sensation. His leg trembled against her body. The
jungle-consciousness passed from him to her. They shared a wild,
feverish excitement. It was as satisfying to her as a saucer of
milk. He passed into a room, closing the door, unaware of her,
shutting her out.

Nicholas had intended that afternoon to go out. Subconscious,
although he would not recognize it, was the determination to call
on Mrs. Agar. It would be better that he should not do so;
nevertheless . . . But he did not go out. He saw the storm piling
up behind the pale and crooked chimneys, and something in the
heavy foreboding air decided him to remain in the house until the
storm should be over. Then, sitting in his bedroom, engaged with
one of Ezra Pound's Cantos, he decided that he would have
a bath. His natural gaiety had for the moment forsaken him.
Something told him that his situation (the only situation that
could conceivably matter to him) was developing too swiftly for
his comfort and he must think about it. The best place to think
about it was in a hot bath. Moreover he loved to be clean. He
could not be too clean, and soap, bath-salts, fresh
underclothing, these things would be very good on a day as sultry
and difficult.

He wandered into the passage, thinking that he would order a
drink; he passed Charles' dressing-room, the door of which was
open, and, lazily entering, saw Charles' purple dressing-gown
lying across the end of the bed. He liked purple; it was his
favourite colour--wine-coloured carnations, Homer's wine-stained
sea, a still-life of purple wine-glasses painted by William
Nicholson, owned by Mrs. Appia in Rome, all good things. He put
on Charles' purple gown and, humming (for now, like a child, he
was happy again), he wandered back to his room. He undressed,
looked at himself naked in front of the long pier-glass, wondered
appreciatively that he should still have so fine a figure,
speculated on what Mrs. Agar would think of it, collected his
sponge, nail-brush, bath-towel, Ezra Pound's Cantos, put
on Charles' dressing-gown and sauntered off again.

Nearing the bathroom door he encountered Janet. He hated the
woman. He hoped that he would embarrass her by appearing before
her thus, early in the afternoon, almost naked. A crash of
thunder broke above the house.

'Well, Janet,' he said, 'I am about to have a bath.'

'Yes, sir,' she said.

The passage was narrow. She had drawn herself up stiffly
against the wall. What a pinched dry face the old woman had! How
pleased she was with her neatness, plainness, primness! Yes, he
hated her. But he smiled his most charming smile.

'What a storm!' he said. 'That's why I am going to have a
bath.'

'Yes, sir,' she answered.

He stood full-square; if she passed him she must brush against
him: that would amuse him.

'And I tell you what I want, Janet,' he continued. 'A nice
whisky and soda.'

Janet looked at him but said nothing. He was irritated.

'See that there's one in my bedroom, will you?'

'I will tell Rose, sir.'

'Too grand to do it yourself?' he asked, smiling. 'Why
are you so grand, Janet? It would interest me to know. You
think that you're simply magnificent, don't you, and that no one
in this house can hold a candle to you. I expect you're right.
All the same I suppose you're paid for your job like other
people. Not that I ever see you doing any work. I don't blame you
for that. I don't do any work either. But then no one pays
me anything.'

She did not move. At last she said:

'Would you mind letting me pass, sir?'

'No, but wait a minute. I want to know, as we are
talking man to man, why you've always hated me so?'

She looked him then straight in the face.

'It's not my place,' she said, 'to have feelings. I do my
duty.'

'Well,' he answered, 'that's just what I question. Not that
I've a right to question anything, of course. Still I am
one of the family.'

'It's for my mistress,' she said, 'to know whether I do my
duty.'

'Yes, I suppose it is. But my sister has a warm heart. She
would put up with anything.'

Then, really irritated, he snapped out: 'Do you know what you
are, Janet? Just between man and man. You're a tiresome old
bitch.'

Then he went on into the bathroom.

When he had the water exactly to the right temperature and was
lying down in it, he reflected that it was most foolish of him to
lose his temper. That surely was the unforgivable folly in
anyone. It showed that his nerves were on edge and that it was
indeed high time for him to consider in all its aspects his
situation.

The great question was: Would he stay or would he go? If he
went, where would he go to? Nowhere. At the present moment there
was no house in the world ready to receive him. And in addition
to that he had, at this moment, exactly two pounds three and
sixpence halfpenny. Moreover he liked it where he was. Not, he
thought as he curled his toes in the delicious water, that he
liked anyone in the house very much, save, possibly, the girl;
and his brother, Matthew, he disliked extremely.

Here he was conscious of a real grudge against life. He was
the most amiable of human beings--given a little, a very, very
little, just enough to live upon, a room or two, a picture, a
book, a small luxury, those things plus security and he wished
everyone well, would be charming and kind and generous within his
means. But it was exactly this security that was always denied
him! There wasn't a more charming, sweeter-natured fellow in the
world. But how could he continue to be charming and good when he
had to fight, every minute of the day, for his very
existence?

Nor was he growing younger. In spite of the fitness of his
firm and well-tended body his hair was thinning, there were
slight rolls of flesh about his middle, he was weary when three
years ago he wouldn't have been, he lost his temper with a silly
old servant. He was not so confident of his wisdom and control as
he had been. He had not the power over Abel that he had once had.
Abel was a danger. And, most menacing of all, there was Mrs. Agar
and her world. He knew that that world was a lower one than any
that he had ever inhabited. He was not yet its inhabitant, but he
was slipping into it. It was a lost world, a world where
one false step meant ruin and disaster. Some of its inhabitants
had already experienced that ruin. Once you were down there,
really there, you never climbed up again. You were done
for.

The storm had made the room very dark and he had switched on
the electric light. He had propped Ezra Pound's Cantos
between the soap-dish and the wall. Turning on his side he read
in that cold unreal illumination:

We also made ghostly visits, and the stair
That knew us, found us again on the turn of it,
Knocking at empty rooms, seeking for buried beauty;
And the sun-tanned gracious and well-formed fingers
Lift no latch of bent bronze, no Empire handle
Twists for the knocker's fall; no voice to answer.
A strange concierge, in place of the gouty-footed.
Sceptic against all this one seeks the living,
Stubborn against the fact. The wilted flowers
Brushed out a seven years since of no effect.
Damn the partition! Paper, dark brown and stretched,
Flimsy and damned partition!

He shivered. His bare flank, out of the warm water, was chill.
'Flimsy and damned partition' and the thunder rolling menacing,
aloof, beyond the window. He had come to a parting of the ways.
His personal case was more desperate than it had ever been, and
that sense of desperation would drive him, were he not careful,
into company that would, he knew clearly, damn him for ever. To
avoid it he must stay where he was, and to stay where he was he
must have money. He must have money from Charles or Fanny or
Grace--from all three of them perhaps.

Then (and here he sat up and turned on the hot water again)
there was Lizzie.

Yes, there was Lizzie, the only person for whom, besides
himself, he cared. She had seemed for a long while to be part of
himself and so the easier to care for. She had, since she was a
tiny child, responded to persons and things exactly as he himself
might, coolly, ironically, always keeping her head, never afraid
and never enthusiastic. And so, from this, he had gathered that
she was fond of him. But was she? Upon his soul he could not be
sure. And now, since their stay in this house, he had become less
sure. Were they affecting her, these people? She was, it seemed,
attached to the small boy Edward, surely a most unattractive
child. She did not dislike, as one would have supposed she must,
her walks with Grace. She found Fanny kind.

She was changing--but then she was growing. But if he lost
her--! At that a slight shiver (bath water, like tea, was never
as hot at the second brew) struck his body. The thunder rumbled
and the little room was close with a thick packed heat. He buried
his body deep, allowing only his face to emerge, while the hair
on his chest, like a sinister water-plant on a pond's fringe,
wavered on the surface. If he lost her he would be alone, and the
thought of that loneliness was suddenly appalling to him
although, his whole life long, he had defied loneliness, laughed
at people who needed props, mocked the lusts of the lustful and
the sentiment of the sentimental.

But of course he would not lose Lizzie: they had done too
much, seen too much together. She had taken life as he had shown
it to her and had shared his values. But suppose that she no
longer did so? Curse these aunts and uncles and sticky family
ties! He would remove her from them before it was too late. But
could he? Leave the family, and on the further side of the ditch
were Abel and Mrs. Agar! He was growing old. He was losing his
power of decision. He was becoming altogether too serious and
solemn. Meanwhile he needed money, must have it. About
that one could not be too serious. He sat up and began to sponge
himself and, as he did so, had the sense that something or
someone was waiting for him outside the bathroom door. Someone
was crouching there. He felt, in his nudity, oddly unprotected
and alone. This damned thunderstorm gave you all kinds of
ideas!

He got out, dried himself, and, with a malignant splash,
Pound's Cantos fell into the bath, which was gurgling with
malicious satisfaction. This added to his ill-temper, for it was
a rare book. He had procured it from Paris, Pound being
altogether too clever and erudite for the English. He picked out
the book, which seemed, through its dampness, to have lost
suddenly both its cleverness and erudition. Then he remembered.
Charles had said, some months ago, that he could have the purple
dressing-gown if he liked. It had been hanging in Charles'
cupboard, and Charles had said that he was too old now for purple
and that he scarcely ever wore it. Now that he had got it he
would keep it! This cheered him, and, whistling, he stepped out
into the passage. Here, in its obscurity, he nearly fell over the
cat. Then, as he reached the broader light above the stairs, his
hand in the pocket of his gown touched a paper. He drew out a
letter. This was in an envelope, unfastened, and in Charles'
hand. He took it from its envelope and began to read. The first
part of the letter was as follows. There was no date and no
address:

DARLING--I am writing this late at night or rather early in
the morning. I haven't been able to sleep. I did go off for a
moment and then I woke, then lay here as though I never would
sleep again as long as I lived. How I have longed for you to be
here! Just that you should be sitting in the chair near the bed
and talking to me so that I should hear your voice and sometimes
touch your hand. Is this love nothing but madness? You take it so
calmly. I often wonder whether you care for me at all. And why
should you, an old dull man like myself, so unused to these
things, so blundering and clumsy and stupid? How patient you are
with me! And meanwhile I am in a fever. I think of you all day
and often, as now, all night as well. I thought I was so happy
and contented before you came, with my wife and children and
home, and indeed, God knows, I love them still. But they are no
longer enough and never will be again. The worst of it is that I
am not ashamed but only proud that you should care for me. You
do, don't you? I would die, I think, if you did not. Anyway it is
already morning and to-day I shall see you and have you close to
me. . . .

'My God!' said Nicholas. Then he added: 'The silly old fool!'
But Charles! Charles! He never would have conceived such a
possibility! Charles to be unfaithful! Charles to write such
turgid nonsense, to leave such a letter in his dressing-gown! And
the woman--who was she? And Fanny! What would she say if she
knew? Charles of all people in this world!

He thought that something was rubbing against his bare leg. He
looked down but there was nothing there. Yes, he would keep the
purple dressing-gown--a valuable garment.

At that same time Matthew was entertaining two of his friends
in his room. His friends were called Danny Oldfield and Bob
Orange.

Danny was over sixty and looked more, for his hair was
snow-white and he had a small wrinkled anxious face, very
charming when lit up with a smile or a question. His shoulders
were bowed, for he had been a bank clerk until two years ago when
an aunt had left him a little money. He was a widower, lived
alone in two small rooms near Victoria Station. His blue suit was
well worn, but he was as clean and fresh as an apple-tree. Bob
Orange was a sturdy young man with nothing very special about
him. He did not resemble an apple-tree nor a nice friendly dog
nor a strong wave of the sea nor any of the other things that
poetic writers think of. He was just a sturdy young man. Danny
was the first of this now large body of friends. He was, in fact,
the beginning of it all. One fine day Matthew had sat beside him
on a seat on the Chelsea Embankment and they had begun to talk.
They talked about God and found that they thought very much alike
in that they were both conscious of some contact, enduring,
persistent and powerful. Danny came to see Matthew and they soon
found that they were friends. Then Danny brought with him a man
who lived on the same floor as himself, a thin cadaverous
widower, swallowed up in spectacles, called McTavish. McTavish
brought his daughter Mary. Mary brought an elderly spinster, Miss
Murdoch.

After a while they thought they would have some definition.
They were not a Society and were determined never to be one, but
they needed some very simple expression for their conduct of
life. So they pledged themselves (very gently and without any
kind of sharp term) to contemplation, work and love. That is,
they said that they would try to be quietly alone during some
part of every week, they would not be idle, and they would
endeavour to be generous, warm-hearted and tolerant. This last
did not mean that they would love, indiscriminately, their
fellows. Miss Murdoch, for instance, could not abide Mr. Sellars,
the second-in-command at the office where she was. Nor had she
any intention of abiding him--he was a nasty, mean, lecherous old
man. Nor did Mr. McTavish care for Mrs. Graham, his
sister-in-law.

'None of your saints on purpose for me,' he said fiercely,
glaring at Matthew through his glasses. 'I wasn't born a saint
and I shan't die one.' But they had this in common. They believed
in a spiritual world and wished that their consciousness of it
should grow, should pervade their daily lives, should transmute
the material world as sunlight soaks into a landscape. Because
they all, different though they were, shared this common
experience, their friendship developed very naturally. They made
allowances for one another, were so grateful that they were no
longer lonely that they felt generously to one another. They
talked freely and unselfconsciously about God and, while keeping
their private independence, shared, when they wished, their
experience. But no one demanded a confidence of another nor did
anyone judge another's private life. The habit of securing, an
hour or two every week, silence and quiet grew with practice. It
did not make their actual daily life less real; it was as though
they passed into another room, closing the door behind them.

After a year or two they numbered some fifty or sixty persons,
and they hired a room in the building where Danny was. Here they
met, had supper together, talked and engaged often in violent
discussions. There were no rules, no obligations. People joined
them and fell away again. Some wanted a more definite creed,
others were shocked at the indifference, as it seemed to them, to
the back-slidings of sinners, others demanded ritual. Some, who
were religious, had yet no consciousness of a spiritual world.
Some were too quarrelsome and argumentative to be endured. Some
were fond of scandal and gossip to the exclusion of everything
else. Some joined them because they wanted material help and were
always after borrowing money.

It might indeed have had no continuous life had it not been
that half a dozen of them shared so deeply their common
experience that no disappointments, quarrels, differences of
opinion, could separate them. These six were Matthew, Danny, Mary
McTavish, young Bob Orange, a friend of his, Sam Somerset, and a
jolly middle-aged woman who kept an antique shop, Milly
Crowder.

Orange and Somerset were fond of roaming. Orange was a
commercial traveller--he dealt in hosiery--Somerset was a motor
mechanic, and the two of them moved over much country. So,
through them, the body of friends grew. In one place or another
people sprang up. But there was still no organization in any
official sense, and it was better, Matthew said, that there
should not be one. Now on this dark sombre afternoon with the
sullen storm pressing about the house, Matthew realized how deep
and true this thing was. Danny might have been his friend in any
case, for he was a delightful man, gentle, kind, humorous,
modest, intelligent, and it was amazing to Matthew to think that
Danny had been sitting for years in that bank and had never been
discovered by anyone to be remarkable. How many thousands upon
thousands there were in London whose personalities had the
strength and the sweetness of fruit and flower, who nevertheless,
by the monotony of their work and the grind of money necessity,
developed through the years a kind of hard, grey skin, obscuring
them even to themselves!

Danny he might have loved in any circumstances had he had the
luck to find him, but with Orange he would have normally nothing
in common. He was a good enough young fellow, but his tastes, his
way of seeing things were all alien to Matthew. Their bond was
their mutual experience. Orange lived as though he had visited
some marvellous country whose people and cities and plains were
for ever filling his vision. He was no saint. He was greedy,
vulgar, lustful, cheap, sometimes mean, sometimes drunk, often a
coward. He never spoke of his spiritual life to anyone unless
they wished it. He had his virtues. He was self-denying as well
as greedy, tactful as well as vulgar, chaste as well as lustful,
rare-spirited as well as cheap, generous, most times sober, often
brave. But, through all these twenty selves, there ran this
one self--the self who had made a journey. And slowly the
twenty selves were being changed, and from them all one
personality was rising. He looked a red-faced, large-limbed,
football-loving young commercial traveller. He looked as though
he would bluster, bully, be beaten into angry shamed silence,
have furtive fuddled love-affairs, drink and gamble his money
away. And he looked, if you studied him, like a child in happy
possession of a secret.

There was nothing, however, in the least mystical or precious
or beautiful about him. He sat now in Matthew's armchair, his
legs spread in front of him, his head back, entirely at his ease,
telling them of his adventures in Salisbury. He had done some
good business there by a bit of luck, although times were
so shocking, and then he and a fellow called Mason had spent a
night and a day on Salisbury Plain. The funny thing had been that
an old man called Barbury had insisted on accompanying them. They
hadn't wanted him. They had warned him that as likely as not they
would be the whole day out there without exchanging a word, that
they were going to read the New Testament. At this old Barbury
had roared with laughter.

'What! You two young bastards! Reading the Bible!'

He had thought that they were going to some farmhouse, pick up
two girls perhaps, anyway drink at a pub somewhere.

But, after all their warnings, he insisted on coming. They
slept at some farm. In the middle of the night old Barbury, who
had been drinking, was ill but, after that, was resigned and
quiet as though he had suddenly thought of something. What he had
thought of was clear in the morning when he explained to them at
some length a new way he had discovered of cheating his
customers. (He was a grocer.) All the same they took him out with
them on the Plain and walked him off his feet. But it wasn't the
walking he hated so much as the silence. Orange and Mason never
exchanged a word until they were back in Salisbury that evening,
and the effect on Barbury was that he was frightened of them and
frightened of the Plain and frightened of himself. Next morning
before Orange returned to London Barbury sought him out and
talked about giving up his grocery business. What he wanted to do
instead he didn't know. He thought he might travel and see the
world a bit.

'But of course he won't sell his business. I bet he's putting
sand in his sugar already. But it was funny. He'd lived all those
years in Salisbury and never seen Stonehenge. He was so tired in
the afternoon that he saw things. He saw the Plain was like the
sea. It got on his nerves our not talking. The last bit he
followed us like a little old dog. He wasn't a bad chap.'

Orange had met friends in Glastonbury and Warminster and
Longbridge Deveril and a number of other places.

He must say they were all very happy. 'It gives you a
different sense of values. I don't mean that I'm not dead nuts on
selling my stuff, more than ever I was. And I need to be, too,
because it gets harder every day. But if you don't--well, there
are other things to think about. And there's another thing. If
you get in the habit of thinking about Christ, He's always nearly
turning up. What I mean is, everyone you meet seems to have a bit
of Him--without their knowing it of course. I knew a man once who
felt that way about Shakespeare. He'd read the plays such a lot
that he saw him everywhere. He'd describe him--you know, long
thin fellow with a beard and breeches, humming to himself or
drinking; very friendly chap, he said he was. . . . Well, I must
be getting. Taking a girl out to a show. What a storm! Listen to
that rain!'

He got up, smiled at them both, said: 'See you next Friday,'
and went. On the stairs he met a small boy, soaking wet, and
grinned at him. 'Posh house,' he thought. 'I'd find it a bit cold
myself.'

After he was gone Matthew got up and switched on the electric
light. He looked out of the window at his favourite tree, whose
leaves now were furred with a silver whiteness against the black
sky. Great drops of rain like gay plums broke on the pane. He
went back to his chair.

'That's a nice boy,' he said.

'Yes,' said Danny.

'You know, Danny, I've been happier during these last weeks
than ever before in my life, I think. Going with you to
Glastonbury, then helping with that hospital at Portsmouth, those
two days with you and Mary on Exmoor--especially that evening
when the sky turned inside out and that moor-pond was full of
stars. And the man standing with his sheep on the edge of space.
Do you remember? We'd been silent for hours, and the woman
stopped us, asking you if you had a match. They wanted to light a
fire. And we both saw a child with the woman. We both saw
it, mind you. And then there was no child there. We'd been
overdoing the silence that day, Danny. The fact is our
three points are getting too damned easy. Contemplation can slip
into mere laziness, work into busybodiness, and as to love--well,
if you only spend your time with people you like, who think as
you do, loving them isn't difficult.'

'You're a queer one, Matthew. You've been struggling your life
long, so you tell me, to get some kind of peace, and now that
you've got it you want to break out of it again.'

'No, Danny, you're wrong. But there's a mystery here. This
life that we have now--this inner life--it's like Alice in
Wonderland's well. The deeper you are the deeper you get. It
pulls one in further and further. You look up from its safe
darkness and see men as trees walking. And you don't care whether
they're trees or no. I'm more selfish, Danny, now when I'm
working at all sorts of things with you and the others than I was
when I was lazy here by myself. We're in danger of becoming a
kind of enclosed band, away by ourselves. And self-satisfied too!
Orange is a nice boy, but didn't you notice when he talked about
that old grocer who went walking with them on the Plain that
there was a kind of self-satisfaction? Pharisaical a bit.'

'Yes--now you mention it--' said Danny.

'It's extraordinary,' Matthew said vehemently, 'how difficult
it is to be real. We now--you and I--we know that God is
real, but to be genuine and modest and kind ourselves although
there's Christ to guide us . . .! It's as though we forgot some
essential central point. Like poor Beaverbrook, for example, who
is always shouting to us to keep out of European wars--forgetting
that the moment the Germans were to take the Channel ports we'd
be for it whether we liked it or no. There's something as simple
as that we're missing--or I, at least, am.'

'Yes,' said Danny. 'But the closer we get to Christ the closer
to the solution.'

'Yes--and that's the miracle. The Gospels are simply
collections of sayings, anecdotes, stories, pieces of gossip,
brought together from where you like. And yet together they make
that central unique loveliness--nothing the least like it in the
world's history before or since--all made up of incongruities
that merge naturally into harmony. So with one's own life--one's
got to merge the incongruities!'

Danny said quietly: 'Don't you worry, Matthew--everything's
all right.'

'Well, it isn't as a matter of fact,' Matthew said. 'I've been
neglecting my own people. Things are wrong here in this
house.'

'What's the matter?'

'Well, you know, I've told you, how we all live independent
lives here. We can because we're all so fond of one another. Up
to the spring of this year we were all as happy as anything. But
since then everything's been going wrong. My sister Fanny, for
instance--there wasn't a happier woman in the world. She's one of
these simple-minded women, you know--just lives for her husband
and children. Lately she's been very unhappy. Only last night,
she said something about a lovely evening last spring when she
was coming home and London was like fairyland. "It will never
look like that again," she said. "Or I shan't see it if it does."
And the boy's gone broody and my other sister is worrying. I've
seen all this for weeks and I haven't done a thing. I'm a coward,
Danny. I hate to meddle in other people's affairs. But I've got
to. I've got to stand up and do something about it.'

'Do you know what's made the change?' asked Danny.

'Yes,' Matthew said slowly. 'I do. It's my brother.'

'The one you told me about?'

'Yes. He's a queer man. He likes to upset people. We never got
on, even when we were small. Everything I believe in he laughs
at. He likes to disturb people. It flatters him. He wants to show
us all that our affection for one another is nonsense. He
positively hates our belief in one another. He'd like to
show us all up.'

'He may be right from his point of view,' said Danny.

'Yes, he may be. All the same I can't see Fanny and Grace and
the children lose their happiness and do nothing about it. He's
got to stop it or go--'

They heard the thunder roll beyond the window and they got up
and stood side by side, looking at the rain.

'I must be off,' Danny said.

'Won't you wait until this is over?'

'Oh no, thanks.' He found his bowler hat and umbrella. 'See
you Friday,' he said.

After Danny had gone Matthew took out his Journal:

I have suddenly realized that I've been too happy these last
weeks--a kind of self-satisfaction. How incredibly hard it is to
live decently--except perhaps for those unselfconscious people
who move in the right direction by instinct. Although if one knew
all about them one might discover that they have their
difficulties. . . .

Our Father which art in Heaven--lead us not into temptation .
. . but He does lead us as He Himself was led. There's
been a storm raging all the afternoon, and while Danny and Orange
were here I kept feeling that He also was in the room with
us--taking shelter from the storm as though He too needed
protection just as we do. Or would want us perhaps to feel
that He needed protection so that we might love Him the more
actively. But it's with myself that I'm dissatisfied. As the
thunder was rolling and the rain lashing the panes it seemed to
say: 'You're all very happy, you and your friends, inside there,
but it's cowardly evasion--that's what your religion is coming
to.'

Perhaps it is--at least I know that I'm a coward. And
I'm especially afraid of Nicholas, of his sort of irony. I don't
know how to deal with it. I never did. As a small boy I would
lose my temper, which was just what he wanted. Or I would be
silent, which amused him. And now how I hate to go out and
confront him!

Did Christ sometimes shiver with nerves before He met the
Pharisees? I hope so. Yes, I think so. He was never sure that the
power would be given to Him. He must have known that the moment
had to come of 'My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
me?' But my cowardice is appalling. That, I suppose, is why I
snatched at this life here, surrounded by people who loved me,
safe, undisturbed.

And so I have gone on from security to security. The first
time that I wondered whether it was right was when Romney came to
see me and I failed so badly. And now I know that I'm
shirking what I should do. If it were only anyone but Nicholas!
Our childhood has made me subconsciously dread him and be awkward
with him. He is clever when I am not. He can laugh at me so
easily. But I know that we will none of us be happy again until
he has gone. I'm afraid of him, for the others as well as myself.
Why do I feel such scorn of myself to-night? This self-contempt
is a miserable thing. We must all think nobly of ourselves and
then we will act nobly. I won't be afraid of Nicholas. Let
him mock. 'Too late loved I Thee, O Thou Beauty of ancient days,
yet ever new! Too late I loved Thee! And behold, Thou wert
within, and I abroad, and there I searched for Thee! Thou wert
with me, but I was not with Thee! Things held me far from Thee
which, unless they were in Thee, were not at all. Thou calledst,
and shoutedst and burstest my deafness. Thou flashedst, shonest,
and scatteredst my blindness, Thou breathedst odours, and I drew
in breath and pant for Thee. I tasted, and hunger and thirst.
Thou touchedst me, and I burned for Thy peace.'

The storm, like smoke driven by the wind, scattered away. All
the roof-tops and chimneys glittered after the rain. A slight
breeze ruffled the river which, under pale gleams of the evening
sun, caught ripples of light like feathers scattered by a
multitude of birds. A freshness, as though the busy streets were
evening meadows, touched wall and pavement and the hurrying
wheels of the traffic. The sun blew out across the clean-washed
sky like a trumpet.

About a week after the storm Romney came to a decision, and it
was his Uncle Nicholas that brought him to it.

The effect upon him of the reading of Harry Rait's letter had
been overwhelming. He was in some ways, at this time, like many
boys of his period--cynical and worldly-wise in expression but
very romantic and even idealistic at heart. He mocked with others
at the very ideals that secretly he cherished. While loudly
proclaiming that every human being must, in this new age, have
absolute freedom of conduct, he kept on himself a severe and
almost ritualistic guard. He did in reality believe that
somewhere, for someone's finding, there was a Holy Grail.

It was quite true that his love of Harry had been religious in
its idealistic creation of an image. It was partly because of
this that Rait (who never analysed anything) had felt so
uncomfortably ill at ease in his company. It may seem incredible
that anyone as ordinary as Rait could become to another a sort of
mystic figure; such things happen every day. Now one sentence in
Rait's letter had destroyed completely all Romney's worship of
him. This sentence echoed and re-echoed in Romney's brain. It
might almost be said to keep him company now for ever, as some
sentences, some scenes, some accidents do. One must, in fact, be
careful about letter-writing. The sentence was:

'Some of the things you said the other evening would be
misunderstood by most men although of course it's all right with
me.'

It was the complacent self-satisfaction behind the sentence
that killed Rait for ever in Romney's eyes. But it not only
killed Rait; it killed, once and for all, his young belief that
you could trust the understanding of others. He saw now what a
fool he had, for so long, been. He had, it was true, been himself
uneasy about his own unsophistication, which was why, some months
before, he had talked to Uncle Matthew. But he saw that, all
through life, one must be on one's guard. Even with one's closest
intimate one cannot tell the truth. (He was in after years to
find out, most happily, that this was not so.) The great harm
that this letter did to him was to make him for a long time to
come less honest, less frank. The child in him was slain.

But he did not blame Harry. He blamed himself. He looked back
on the past two years and saw nothing but folly, ignorance,
blindness. He had created Rait in his own image. He had made that
most fatal of blunders--assumed that some other human being would
be as he wished simply because he wished it.

He was thrown back now into a passion of cynicism, irony and
distrust. One thing he must do--put himself right about women. He
would have a mistress, several perhaps. He would show the world
that he was virile, scornful of ideals, just like all the other
men in this cynical age.

Only--he did not know quite how to set about it. Uncle
Nicholas, perhaps, would show him.

But, before he had his talk with Uncle Nicholas, he
encountered his mother. His love of Harry being gone, he
discovered, to his extreme annoyance, that he ached for affection
from someone. Not that Harry had ever given him very much;
imagination had lent its assistance. This need for affection
disgusted him. After all he was to be a man now, and his love of
his father and mother had too much of the child about it.

Nevertheless it obstinately remained. He only hoped that the
life he was now about to lead would chasten it.

His love for his mother was extremely powerful; it was built
up of a thousand memories, tendernesses, jokes, troubles,
intimacies. Even now, fresh-grown cynic as he was, he had to
confess that his mother was a darling. He knew, beyond argument,
that she was worth a dozen Romneys, which was a pity just now
when he wanted to feel very self-confident, wise and
superior.

So he was very cross indeed when she came into his room, he
just back from his work and busy re-hanging a picture.

'Oh, I didn't know you were there!' she cried. She was flushed
with the number of things that she was doing, her hair was a
little disordered; he disapproved very strongly of her occasional
untidiness.

'What do you want, mother? I do wish you'd knock before you
come in.'

'I know!' She stopped and looked at him like a guilty child.
'I always mean to and I forget.'

She sat down on the edge of the bed. Romney was standing on a
chair, holding a hammer in one hand and in the other a Sickert
interpretation of houses in Bath, bright and shining although
menaced by a purple rain-cloud.

Without a word she got up and held the picture for him while
he knocked the nail in the wall. This, whether he liked it or no,
established a relation between them. He got off the chair and
stood back, admiring it.

'Yes, it looks exactly right there. It gets just the proper
proportion.'

She sat down on the bed again.

'Now that's a picture, Romney, I can understand. I do
think your room's nice, dear. It's wonderful what you've done to
it!'

She looked round appreciatively. Like most of the women of her
generation she had never had much aesthetic education, but she
loved beautiful things and had a natural inborn taste.

'I like that head of a girl so much. Who's that by?'

'Duncan Grant.'

'And that snow picture with the green stream. That's always
one of my favourites.'

'Yes. That's by John Nash. I tell you that every time you come
into this room.'

'Well, I think it doesn't much matter who does things if
they're good. All the fuss as to whether Shakespeare wrote his
plays! In my opinion they were written by at least ten people.
They're all so different. And oh, Romney, that's lovely!
What a darling! May I look at it? I've not noticed it in here
before.'

She went to the little wood-carving by the Jamaican artist.
She picked it up and handled it. 'Oh, dear, I do like
that!'

He smiled. He was delighted. Try as he might to be modern he
must love his mother, who liked the right things so
naturally.

'Yes, that's by a woman. She lives in the West Indies.'

'Oh, it's exquisite! One shoulder's higher than the other, but
I suppose she means it to be! What a quiet, kind face she
has! And it's been made by a woman. Well, I am proud!'

Then, still holding the little figure, she turned round to him
with a face rather like that of a piteous child, and said:

'Romney--what do you think? Janet's going!'

That, indeed, was news for him. He stopped where he was and
suddenly, a child as he was, exclaimed:

'Janet!--Going!'

She nodded her head.

'I've known it for some time. I've said nothing to anyone
except Nicholas--not even your father--because I hoped all the
time she would change her mind. She spoke to me first a long time
ago. Now it's settled. She's leaving us next week.'

'Janet leaving us! Oh! but it's impossible. But why? What's
the matter? And Uncle Nicholas--what's he got to do with it?'

'He's got everything to do with it. It's because he's been
rude to her that she's going.'

'Rude? Why, what did he do?'

'He lost his temper one day and said something shocking.'

'I can't believe it. He never loses his temper. She must be
imagining it.'

Fanny shook her head.

'Oh no. He admits it.'

'Well, then, he must apologize.'

'He has. I went to him and told him. He said at once: "Oh!
I'll apologize," and he did, quite charmingly. He said that I
must be there when he did it, and I must say no one could have
been nicer.'

'Well, then--there it is.'

'Oh no, it isn't. You know how obstinate and provoking Janet
is. She stood there as stiff as a tree and listened to him. When
he'd finished all she said was: "I bear no malice, I'm sure."
It's plain that she can't endure him. Afterwards she said to me
that she was very sorry but she was an old woman and tired out
and so on.'

She sat closer to him, getting immense comfort from her
contact with him.

'I hope so, I'm sure, but I don't think she will--not while
Nicholas is here.'

Romney took her hand.

'But Uncle Nicholas is all right. I must say, if he did lose
his temper, it's about the only time he ever has! He's charming
to everybody.'

She sighed. 'Yes, I know he is. Nobody has charm like
Nicholas. But he has upset the house a little. Ever since
we've been back from Cornwall things haven't been the same.'

'Oh, haven't they?' said Romney. 'I haven't noticed.'

'Well, I don't know whether I ought to say anything--but I'm
afraid he's borrowing money from your father. And then
grandmother being ill has made things difficult.'

'That's not Uncle Nicholas's fault, anyway--'

'No, of course not. But Grace is unhappy about something.
And--you've been worrying, haven't you?'

'Oh, never mind about me! That's not Uncle Nicholas's
fault either.'

'No--but--' She straightened herself up.

He could feel her hand tighten on his. 'I've been full of
fancies myself. Perfect nonsense--as though someone were trying
to take you all away from me.'

'Take us all away!' Romney laughed. 'As though anyone
could!'

She smiled. 'Of course they couldn't--not really. But I've
always known that it couldn't go on for ever. Our all being so
fond of one another, so close, being together. You and Nell will
marry, Edward will grow up. That's all quite right, of course.
But I mean something deeper than that.' Her voice sank. She
looked down at her lap. 'I mean that you should grow to think
differently of me, despise me a little, think me stupid, not want
to see me any more. I expect that every mother of my age has that
kind of fear. And that's where Janet was so important. I mean
that I was sure that she would always be with me. While she's in
the house I feel safe.'

'Safe!' he said. 'Why, mother, what are you afraid of?'

'I don't know,' she answered. 'I never used to be.'

Then he cheered her up, petted and consoled her.

She ended with: 'And now, dear, I must go. Don't think of what
I've said. All silly nonsense. But it's such a relief to talk to
someone.'

After she was gone he sat down and tried to think of things
clearly. But he could not. Everything was disordinate. He had
been brought up, like every intellectual young man of his time,
on Proust, and now he had been reading the four volumes of M.
Jules Romains' endless novel. The fourth volume in its cheap
French paper was lying beside his bed now. That was exactly what
his life seemed to him at the moment. Bits and pieces. He had
never supposed that he could write, but now it occurred to him
that he could write a very good novel indeed about himself in
this present manner. Very easy. No wonder so many of his friends
were writing novels! Not of course that he could be as clever as
M. Romains, but he need not worry about arrangement or form.
There he was in his room and the Sickerts were on his wall and
Mr. Sickert himself was probably taking a photograph of a lady
whose portrait he was painting. Outside Sickert's room the tram
was rumbling by and an old man with a dirty moustache was selling
the evening paper while his wife at home, in a filthy room
crawling with bugs, was reading in the Daily Sketch of the
Hon. Mrs. Langbridge, who, at that moment, was drinking her fifth
cocktail in a room all glass, shining steel and white marble. The
Prime Minister, Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, was no doubt drinking his
tea at his desk in a room all emptiness and windows, while Norman
the Butcher was reclining in a chair, snoozing before his
wrestling bout at the Ring. In the hospitals people were sinking
into space under anaesthetics, while Mrs. Patrick of 'The
Hollies,' Brixton, was scolding the small maid for breaking the
handle off the best tea-pot, and rows of people at the Regal
Cinema were watching adultery in New York. At Geneva they were
wondering what America was going to do, and in Russia the
machinery was dropping to pieces, while Harry had just made a
splendid drive on to the ninth green, confident now of doing the
hole in three. . . .

And here was he in the centre of this with no centre at all.
That is, he was empty, miserable, lonely, and death (so long as
it was painless) would be preferable.

Later, when he had dressed and found himself alone in the
drawing-room he had a moment of something more than negation. He
was, for one brief instant, actively frightened.

He was standing in front of the round mirror with the carved
border of gilt flowers, arranging his tie. The mirror embraced
half a picture of still-life--flowers, fruit and a needlecase--a
corner of the Japanese screen, amber and crimson, and a square
table with some books and a silver tray. All these things reposed
in the mirror with what Romney, in his present mood, could not
help but think a complacent self-satisfaction. He had that sudden
instinct, common at moments to all aesthetic fanatics, of general
destruction. He would not care if he destroyed everything in the
room. It was crowded, clotted, stifling. And then, without a
moment's warning, Uncle Nicholas was standing in the mirror!
There he was, foreshortened a little but smart, erect,
beautifully dressed and motionless. He was stiller than the
still-life itself! How softly he had come into the room, and what
was he watching Romney for?

'Yes, I know. It's a damned shame. It was all my fault too. I
lost my temper one day, and cursed her. I was no end sorry
afterwards because I know what she means to your mother. I did
all I could. I apologized handsomely. No good.'

'Could you speak to her again, do you think?' Romney
asked.

'Of course I will if you think it'll be any use.'

'It might. You're awfully good at getting round people,
Uncle.'

'Thanks for the compliment, if it is a compliment. But
no, I'm afraid Janet's one of the people I never will get
round. She detests me.'

'Oh no, I'm sure she doesn't!'

'I'm sure she does. . . . However, I don't mind trying.'
Nicholas smiled at Romney. 'The truth is, old boy, I'm a bit of a
nuisance in the house, I'm afraid. I'll be off soon. There's a
job I've heard of in Spain--Barcelona.'

'Oh no,' said Romney. 'We'd miss you like anything. The house
is quite different since you've been here.'

'Is it? Perhaps it's not a change for the better.'

'Of course it is,' Romney said. 'You've woken us all up.'

'I don't think your mother thinks so--or your Uncle Matthew.
He was saying something this morning--quite friendly, but
suggesting that I've been here a long time.'

'Oh, Uncle Matthew! He's always dreaming. He doesn't see
things as they are.'

'No, I don't think he does--or not as I see them.'

Romney hesitated. Then he said:

'Uncle Nicholas--will you do something for me?'

'Of course I will--anything in the world but lend you
money.'

'Will you let me take you out one evening? We'll dine
somewhere and go to a show.'

'Of course. I'll be delighted.'

'I want,' Romney went on, 'to talk to you. You know the world.
You can advise me.' He hesitated. 'About women for instance. I'm
most awfully ignorant--I--' He stopped.

'Why, of course,' Nicholas said. 'But what about your father?
Why don't you talk to him?'

'Oh, father! He doesn't know anything about women.'

'How do you know?' Nicholas asked.

'Why, of course he doesn't. He's never looked at a women
except mother.'

'I wouldn't be too sure,' Nicholas said. 'You never can be
sure about anyone.'

Romney took this in. 'No, I suppose you can't. All the same I
am sure about father. Besides, anyway it's difficult
talking to one's father. He knows too much about one. He can't
see the wood for the trees!'

But it was not, as it happened, with Romney that Nicholas'
next step was taken.

There came a day--Wednesday, October 19th--which was to prove
one of the half-dozen most important days of his life. In Jamaica
watching the road to Constant Spring for a brown man with a
basket, once in his pyjamas on a cold night in Rome bowing to a
lady at the door of her bedroom, once in Sicily turning over the
body of a man lying face downwards on the kitchen floor, once
nursing Lizzie through a fever in Paris, once climbing naked on
to the roof of a villa near Cannes in the early hours of the
morning (he hadn't a stitch: he walked clown the country road
afterwards stark naked), once in a bedroom in a filthy little
hotel in Camberwell writing out a cheque for Abel--these were old
historic occasions. Now Wednesday, October 19th, 1932, was
another. That day, by a combination of incidents, brought him to
a decision which affected the lives of a number of very different
people, from Janet's niece in a little house in Hampstead to Mrs.
Arthur Paradine, all that day in bed with a cold, in her charming
house in Regent's Park, and entirely unaware that Captain
Nicholas Coventry existed.

How strange! Because Captain Nicholas lunched with his niece,
had tea with Mrs. Agar, an argument with his brother Matthew, and
a quarrel with his sister Fanny all on the same day, Wednesday,
October 19th, therefore some years later Janet's sister
Angela married a butcher in Glasgow, Mrs. Paradine's brother,
Major Watson-Harvey, committed suicide in a flat in Half Moon
Street, and Edward, Fanny's youngest, won a prize for a
historical essay on 'The Revolution of 1688.' To say nothing at
all about Fanny Carlisle's life, which was altered entirely by
the events of this particular day.

The events, taken separately, did not seem so very unusual,
and later, on looking back, Nicholas saw the luncheon as an
especially good plate of borstch, the tea-party as a pair of
white crystal ear-rings worn by Mrs. Agar, the dispute with his
brother as something shared by Leonardo, and the final
regrettable incident with Fanny as the outer sheet of The
Times newspaper.

The luncheon with Nell and her young man began it.

Nicholas had stopped Nell one evening and, moved by very real
affection, had put his arm lightly about her and drawing her a
little closer to him said: 'Nell--I'd like to meet your young man
one day. Can't I?'

'Why, of course, Uncle Nicholas,' she had said.

'What about a meal? I've made a bit at bridge. I'll treat you
both to a lunch.'

So, on this 19th of October, they all three met at the Basque
restaurant in Dover Street. This is one of the best restaurants
in London for a quiet little gossip, because the inner room is
all corners, the lights (the room must be lit all day) are low,
the attendance is polite, swift, unobtrusive, the food is
excellent. They had a table in the far corner round the
corner. They were as remote as though they were in the middle of
Glasgow.

Nell's love had matured her in a few weeks, so that she was a
child no longer but a woman, ardent, courageous, all generous,
lit with a spiritual as well as a physical radiance. Something
too had happened to Hector. He no longer considered as to whether
he might not be, with a slice of luck, the greatest poet of the
age. He wanted, more than ever before, to write great poetry, but
it was poetry now that would be laid at Nell's feet. Like all
poets freshly in love he thought his mistress compact of divinity
and, as day succeeded day, he found her ever more divine. For
these things with every hour move upward until the easiest peak
is reached. It is the great question then whether the descent
will begin or the difficult climb to a peak hidden in clouds
whose conquest is hazardous and uncertain.

Hector had great good fortune in this, that Nell Carlisle was
of fine quality, brave, honest and clear-sighted, with a heart
inherited from her mother. This was his good fortune and not his
merit, although he was himself a nice boy. But he was, when Nell
found him, at the parting of the ways. Another year with his wife
and the rot would set in. Which is only another proof of the
intricate complexity of all moral questions.

Nicholas, looking upon them, enjoying the experience, recently
forbidden him, of acting host again, touched by their youthful
ardour, gave them his blessing and thought that the sooner they
were in bed together the better. Moral questions did not seem
complex to him at all. Then he liked Hector at first sight. He
could see that he was a poet, and poetry, as we know, was one of
his passions. He had also a natural sympathy with any young man
who wished to deceive his wife.

'Now then, you two, what are you going to eat?'

They chose borstch and then other things. They chose the same
things, which was, Nicholas thought, very sweet of them.

It was not long, of course, before they were deep in the
complexity of their affairs. They told Nicholas everything.
Hector, after a cocktail and some very excellent Graves, decided
that Nicholas was exactly the man-of-the-world he needed.

And Nicholas was perhaps happier than at any time since that
April day of his descent on the Westminster house. Happier and
more benevolent. This was how he would always like to be, how,
when he was tender with himself, he saw his soul--a bright, thin,
shining soul like a sword, but on its sheath carved the figures
and patterns of strong benevolence. The two cocktails that he had
had, the Graves that he had absorbed, the extraordinary rough
richness of the borstch, the knowledge that he would, that
afternoon, have tea alone with Mrs. Agar--yes, and something
behind these things, as though he were aware, without being
actually aware, that to-day was an important one in his
history--all this led him to gaiety, a sort of golden trumpet
splendour, a herald of the new world blowing his challenge to the
old mildewed castle of dead convention.

Nell looked up at him. Her glance was sharp, even critical,
and he had a sudden queer realization of how much a piece they
all were--Fanny, Grace, Matthew and the two children--forming
together a block of shining, innocent, glittering crystal,
simple, clear-cut, beautiful if you liked, but irritating in its
virtuous purity. He should have been of the same block and
wasn't.

Nell said: 'I've been reading a book. Oh, I know you and
Hector will think it most awfully old-fashioned. It's The
Wings of the Dove, by Henry James. I know--it seems older
than the Brontës or Jane Austen.'

'Where on earth,' began Hector, 'did you find it,
darling?'

'I found it in Ella Parsbury's flat. I asked her if I could
borrow it. "Oh, that old thing," she said scornfully. Funny,
isn't it, when only thirty years ago it was considered the very
last word in modern brilliance? I took it home and read it. I
couldn't put it down as a matter of fact. But never mind whether
I liked it or no. The point is, its subject.'

'There's one in this book, though. Two lovers tell a lie,'
Nell went on (she felt that they were both laughing at her, but
she didn't care), 'and the lie kills their relationship. The
consequences of it stand always, afterwards, in their way.'

'A very sentimental theme,' said Nicholas.

'No,' went on Nell bravely. 'But the point of the book is that
it makes you wonder whether fine conduct isn't worth
everything else--worth more than everything. I know
it's priggish now to talk about high conduct at all, but perhaps
that's just what's wrong with us all.'

'Well--?' asked Hector.

'Well,' Nell answered, suddenly smiling rather shyly, 'all the
time that I was reading The Wings of the Dove I was
thinking of us. Perhaps if we're shabby and secret over this
we'll destroy our love for one another. It won't ever be the same
after. We won't be the same. Henry James makes you feel
that acting nobly is the only thing to try for--I expect
it's the same now as then.'

'Darling,' Hector said, 'aren't you being a bit
sentimental?'

'I don't care,' Nell answered defiantly. 'It's easy to call
names, Hector, and ordinarily I'd be shy of talking like this.
But I'll risk your laughing at me. I feel as though we were in
for a sort of duel--a duel with someone or something. After all,'
she went on, raising her head and challenging Nicholas, 'you
said, Uncle, just now that we might grow old and find that we've
missed everything. But what's the fun of having anything
if you grow cheap and mean and shabby in the process?'

'No, Hector. I mean this. You can both tease me as much as you
like. I'm sick of all of us not believing in anything,
being so sure that there are no standards any longer, just
grabbing at anything, hurting anyone so long as we get what we
want. And how are we after it all? Pretty rotten. Look at Ella or
Bobby Campbell or Barbara or St. John. . . . And I would have
been the same, Uncle Nicholas, if I hadn't fallen in love with
Hector. I'm not a bit better than the others, but when you're in
love--like this--then it's funny--you don't want to lose the
fineness--'

The waiter just then brought the chicken, and it was a good
thing because they were all a little embarrassed. Hector had
never seen Nell like this, and Nicholas felt (although obviously
without reason) that it was in some way a challenge to himself.
Nell was showing some of that obtuseness to reality so evident in
her mother, her aunt and her uncle. What was this strain
in them that was for ever antagonizing him? Anyway he took up the
challenge.

'Why should you think we'd laugh at you, Nell?' he said
gently. 'The question is about conduct. It always is. Of
course I'm an old ruffian myself,' he went on, laughing, 'but
even I have my rules. But in your particular case, as I see it,
it is just what you say. How you are both going to behave so that
you get the finest possible thing out of it.'

'There, you see!' said Nell triumphantly to Hector. She
wondered, as she looked across at her uncle, with his brightness
and honesty and kindliness, how she could ever have distrusted
him!

'No, you're not. But Henry James and his pre-War
collection of old women were. We really have moved on, I
think. We--or rather your generation--refuse to be
hypocritical any longer about sex or anything. You're courageous,
open, honest. You don't lie, you can't--because you hide
nothing.'

'That's just what I say,' cried Nell. 'We must go to Lottie
and say to her--"Look here, Lottie, Hector and I are in love with
one another. We're very sorry, but there it is." Then we must
discuss it, quietly, the three of us.'

'Quietly!' Hector said. 'You don't know Lottie. That's what
I'm always telling you. She doesn't want me so long as no one
else does. But once you try to take me she'll hold on for all
she's worth.'

'But she can't,' Nell said. 'If you don't love her any
longer.'

'Ah, but she will. She'll make everything as difficult as
possible.'

'Then we must just go away,' Nell said, 'until she realizes
how things are. We're doing her no wrong. She doesn't love you a
bit.'

'Yes, and what do we go away on?' asked Hector. I haven't a
bean.'

'Oh, we'll get a job,' Nell said confidently. 'I don't mind
what we do.'

'There's one thing,' Nicholas remarked quietly, 'that you seem
to have forgotten. There's your mother and father. They don't
belong to your generation, you know.'

'I don't believe she'd understand this, all the same. And,
anyway, just because they love you so much they'll want to save
you from, as it will seem to them, certain unhappiness.'

'I don't care,' said Nell, who felt that she was being
cornered. 'I know the right thing is to be open and honest.
There's nothing to be ashamed of. Lottie doesn't love Hector, and
Hector doesn't love Lottie. It's obviously wrong for them to stay
together when Hector loves someone else. There are no children.
There's nothing in the way.'

'Wait,' said Nicholas. 'Wait for a while. See how things
go.'

'The trouble is,' said Hector, 'that it's difficult for us to
wait. We love one another so much.'

'I don't know,' Nicholas said. 'I've told you already that I'm
an old ruffian--but surely that's old-fashioned morality. If you
do occasionally spend a night together is anyone the
worse? Lottie might be if she loved Hector, but she doesn't. And
it seems to me that if you hold yourselves in, you two, you'll be
doing yourselves more harm--I don't know. I mustn't advise
you. But that's how I see it.'

'Yes, that's all very well, my dear,' Nicholas said. 'But if
you tell all the world about it you'll hurt everybody--your
mother, your father, yourselves. Of course you can, if you
like, decide never to see one another again!'

'Oh, can we?' said Hector. 'Not if I know it!'

Nell was silent. She had been caught. Uncle Nicholas had an
influence on her, steady, strong, determinate. He knew so much
about life. He was wise, he was considerate.

Worst of all was the fact that as Hector took her hand her
love for him enveloped her, caught her heart and dimmed her
judgment. Could she leave him, never see him again? No, she could
not. She turned to him with a look, strangely baffled, almost
beseeching, infinitely loving.

Uncle Nicholas ordered the bill.

When he left them and went on to Mrs. Agar's flat he felt an
uncertain twist of annoyance that discomforted him. He was the
last man in the world to be sentimental about fine feelings, but
Nell's final glance at him had in some way reproached him. He did
not believe in consciences--that seemed to him a weak-kneed
excuse for emotional narcissists--but he did believe in
anything that happened to himself. He seemed to realize that, in
a very short time, he would be forced to take some serious
decision. The way that he went then would determine the rest of
his life, for he was forty-four years of age and fate could not
have the patience to continue for ever offering him choices.

This moment here and now was, in fact, the crisis of his whole
life. And Nell's eyes had asked him a more important question
than she herself knew: 'Uncle Nicholas, are you going to clear
out and leave us alone--or--will you remain?'

Quarter of an hour later he was asking Mrs. Agar that
question. As soon as he came into the quiet hushed room and saw
her with her feet up reading a book and, of all things in the
world, with a lace shawl over her shoulders, he knew that he
wanted to--that indeed he must--make love to her.

She surrendered at once. She had known, of course, that this
was the way that it would go. They spent together a very
passionate hour--the little clock was striking four as they came
back into the sitting-room again--and in the course of that hour
Nicholas said a great many excited and foolish things. He asked
her--as he had asked very many women before her--to go away with
him. He said that she was eating into his blood, that he thought
of her night and day (which was quite untrue), that she had the
loveliest body in the world, and many more things. Like most
sensual men of middle age who have loved women from the age of
ten or thereabout, he lost his head in a kind of practised,
accustomed manner. In the middle of his most passionate ardours
he was aware that he had been abandoned, in just this fashion, a
great many times before. Only, a little later, there was, for the
first time perhaps, the melancholy little cry of the ageing
sensualist: 'How long, O Lord, how long? . . .'

And then, when they were quietly seated in front of the fire
again, he knew that he had, for ever and ever, sunk one stage
lower in the slow remorseless degradation of life.

'And now, Captain Nicholas Coventry,' Mrs. Agar said,
arranging her shawl about her shoulders and smiling at him very
sweetly, 'in five minutes you must go. I am so sorry, but I have
another visitor who likes me best alone.'

He bent forward and kissed her. Their kiss was weary with
satiety. He got up.

'You have been good to me,' he said. 'When shall I see
you again? To-morrow?'

'Yes. Perhaps. There are one or two little things I want you
to do for me if you will. Oh! nothing important--we'll talk
another time.'

Suddenly he wanted to get away, to get far away--back to
Jamaica, perhaps--somewhere safe.

'Do you know,' he said, 'I'm not sure whether it would not be
better for me to leave England tomorrow--shall I?'

She laughed. 'Yes--it does, doesn't it?' Then she said: 'Do
you want to be put in the way of making quite a lot of
money?'

'What way?' he asked.

'Oh, there are lots of ways. If you are clever it's very easy
to make money.'

It was difficult for him to realize that, only twenty minutes
before, he had had her intimately in his arms. But this
experience too was no new one.

'Yes--but I don't want to go to gaol,' he said, laughing.
'Remember that I belong to a very respectable family.'

'Risks are the salt of life,' she answered, stretching her
arms and smiling reflectively. 'And really there are so many
people who deserve to be plundered--so many conceited, stupid
people. Besides, you need never go to gaol. You can always slip
out of life--much more easily than you slipped into it.'

'Yes, I suppose so. But--it may seem strange to you--I don't
want to die. I love life. If only an old lady would adopt me,
look after me, give me security, what a good young man I could
be!'

'Yes,' she answered lazily, 'but being adopted isn't such fun
as you'd suppose. I've tried it and I know. Very tiresome. After
all, nobody gives you anything for nothing. Why should they? I've
tried all the alternatives and my way is the best.'

'What is your way?'

'You shall see if you care to.'

He said good-bye. They did not kiss again.

He knew, as he boarded a bus for Westminster, that he would
now give a very great deal never to have met Mrs. Agar. That
regret--and that fear--put him into a malicious irritable humour.
It was not, he told himself, that he was weak but that one thing
led so damnably to another. He was exasperated at the placid
safety and good fortune of the family to which he was returning.
What had they done to revel undisturbed in their smug
complacency? He was as good as they; better, because he saw life
with clear, honest courage while they cheated. He was a dangerous
man as he let himself into the Westminster house.

It was striking a quarter to five as he climbed the stairs. As
he turned towards his room he saw Matthew.

'Hullo, Matthew!' he said gaily.

Matthew appeared embarrassed.

'Look here, Nicholas. Have you got a minute?'

'Why, yes, of course.'

'Would you come up to my room?'

'Certainly.'

The sense that he had had all day of a developing crisis grew
on him. He had never been in Matthew's room and, as he entered
it, and saw the Leonardo, the orderly bookshelves, the quiet
decency of it, he felt that Matthew had an advantage of him. What
a quiet old humbug the old boy was!' The only one now of the
whole family over whom Nicholas had not some hold, and if the
truth were known he had a mistress hidden somewhere--or
even a worse skeleton. Bachelors were queer cattle one way or
another.

But the important thing was that this little meeting would
suit his mood, for Matthew was the only one of all the family
whom he thoroughly disliked, had always disliked since they were
tiny children together rolling about on the floor of the nursery.
Matthew was a year his senior--that had always annoyed him.
Matthew was calm and imperturbable. Matthew was (as far as one
knew) good. Matthew was religious. Matthew was really
detestable.

He tumbled into one of Matthew's armchairs, took out his pipe,
stretched his elegant legs and looked at his brother most
lovingly.

'Well, old man, what is it--and, do you know, I've never been
in your room before?'

'No, I know you haven't.'

'I've always been afraid to. What do you carry on in here so
quietly--private orgies or something?'

'No, nothing so exciting, I'm afraid,' said Matthew, timidly
smiling. He was afraid of his dashing scornful brother and,
realizing his fear, was ashamed of himself.

'We all want to know,' said Nicholas lightly. 'I myself have
seen some of the oddest people coming up the stairs, an old man
like a prophet, a young man like a prizefighter. . . . You know,'
he went on, 'this is a comic house! There can't be another
like it in London--the way we all go on leading our own lives. .
. . Why, I've been here since April and we really haven't had a
talk, you and I, although we're brothers, all the time I've been
here.'

'No,' said Matthew. 'And that's the reason I asked you in now.
I've been shy of inviting you.'

'Shy--of me!' said Nicholas, laughing. 'Impossible! Why, old
chap, no one could be shy of a lazy good-for-nothing like
myself!'

'I've always been shy of you, I think,' said Matthew, 'all my
life long--and you know I have.'

'Well, we haven't seen so much of one another, have we?' said
Nicholas. 'I've been abroad such a lot.'

'Yes, you have--and for ten years never gave us a sign of your
existence.'

'I know,' said Nicholas, giving his legs a cheerful little
kick. 'That's just like me. I'm a most awful rotter. And I'm so
fond of you all. And yet I let all that time pass.'

'And what are you going to do now?' asked Matthew.

'Now?--why, what do you mean?'

'How long are you going to stay with us?'

'Oh, I don't know.' Nicholas stretched his arms and yawned.
'Why--are you tired of me?'

'Yes, I am,' said Matthew.

After that there was a long pause. Nicholas looked at Matthew
from his head to his feet, at his plump cheeks, his square body,
his broad thighs, his small feet.

He said at length:

'Of all the damned cheek!'

Matthew sighed. 'Yes, I suppose it is cheek. I hated
saying it. I've been days and days making up my mind.'

'Making up your precious mind to what?'

'To asking you to go. You see, it isn't really my place. It
isn't my house. So long as Charles and Fanny like to have
you here it isn't anything to do with me, especially as we
scarcely ever see one another. All the same I do ask you!'

Nicholas drew a deep breath. Then he laughed. He repeated: 'Of
all the damned cheek!' Then, as though to himself: 'Never mind.
Let's see what this means. What does it mean, my dear
brother? Is it simply personal? Of course we've always loathed
one another. That's why we've kept out of one another's way. So
that if it's simply personal, it's nothing new. But is it?
Is it only your own idea?'

'I don't know,' said Matthew slowly. 'I don't want you to take
offence at this. I don't see why you should. All our lives you've
completely disregarded me. I don't see why we shouldn't quietly
discuss it. I think you're doing a lot of harm here. I don't
suppose you mean to. I don't think you ever do mean to do
harm. All the same--please go away. You aren't our sort. You
never were. You're making a lot of people unhappy.'

'Oh--and whom do I make unhappy?'

'Fanny, Grace--soon Romney, and Nell and Charles.'

Then Nicholas burst out laughing. He slapped his knee.

'Matthew, you're priceless! You always have been, you always
will be. You're the most hopeless old-womanish prig and
sentimentalist the world has ever seen. And so you always were.
Do you remember when those boys came over from Donnington once
and we had the rat-hunt? Do you remember how sick you were? And
do you remember when I whacked your behind for sneaking to mother
about the apples?'

'I don't think I did sneak,' said Matthew quietly. 'But never
mind. It's a long time ago.'

'No, of course you didn't sneak really, but the results
were the same. That was you all over. You were always better than
everyone else, afraid to swear lest God should hear you. You
wouldn't kiss a girl because it was wicked and you wouldn't bet
because it wasn't fair and you wouldn't drink because you were
ill if you did--'

'Anyway,' said Matthew, laughing, 'you can't hold that up
against me, Nicholas. It wasn't my fault if it disagreed with
me.'

'Oh, but it would disagree with you! Anything sporting
always did. . . . And now this is just like you again. You
want me to leave the house, you inform me, quietly and in
the secrecy of your chamber, that I'm an offence to the family!
As a matter of fact if you ask them you'll find that they like me
very much indeed.'

'Yes,' said Matthew, who discovered that his fear had left
him. 'Of course you're charming. You can charm anyone. That's why
I've kept you out of my room. I didn't want to be charmed
by you.'

'Well, you're not going to be charmed by me now,' said
Nicholas. His voice had changed. It was hard and chill--even a
little exasperated. He was determined not to lose his
temper, but he really did detest Matthew and would not mind at
all kicking his too-large behind even as he had done in
childhood. The sense of this made control more difficult.

'I tell you straight, Matthew, you're a meddlesome humbug just
as you've always been. You sit here in your room like an old
woman--God only knows what you are doing with your
prizefighters and prophets!--and when you come out into decent
daylight you blink like an old owl. Meanwhile we're all very
happy and jolly and comfortable, thank you.'

'So you're going to stay?' Matthew asked with a sigh.

'Yes, I'm going to stay.'

'I'm sorry--' Matthew rubbed his nose with his forefinger.
'Because in that case I shall do everything I can to see that you
don't.'

'You!' Nicholas cried scornfully. 'What can you
do?'

'I can show Fanny and Charles what you're like. They haven't
the least idea.'

Matthew knocked his pipe out against the fireplace. 'I'm not
such a fool as you think, Nicholas. I never was. That was always
your big mistake. I'm not clever in your way. I believe in
the things you don't believe in and so you think me a fool. But
you're an ass in your own way, you know--'

Nicholas laughed. 'You're not worth being annoyed with,
Matthew. Of course I'm an ass--it doesn't need you to tell me. If
I weren't should I be here amusing the family for my bread and
butter? Do you really think that that's the most amusing thing I
could find to do? But there is at least this difference between
us. I'm honest. I know the world to be a swindling sham. I know
that my next-door neighbour's probably worse than myself and I'm
bad enough. And thank Heaven the rest of humanity's coming at
last to my way of thinking. God's finished, even though it's
taken two thousand years to finish Him.'

Matthew puffed at his pipe. 'I said just now that you're a
fool, Nicholas, and so you are. How do you know anything about
God? You've never been on speaking terms with Him, nor ever tried
to be. It's as though you said the Taj Mahal didn't exist simply
because you've never been there.'

Nicholas leant forward. He looked at his quiet pipe-smoking
brother for the first time with intentness.

'Now that really interests me, Matthew,' he said. 'Forget our
personal dislike of one another for a moment. Can you seriously
tell me, as a grown man with his wits about him, that you believe
in God?'

'I do.'

'Well--I'm damned! I'm being quite sincere in this. I didn't
conceive it possible that in this year nineteen-thirty-two there
was any man anywhere with brains and education who seriously
believed in God.'

'Oh--it's their job. Will you tell me that any of these
professing Christians when they're alone with their naked selves
in their bedrooms, believe in God? Really believe, I
mean--believe in Him as they know that two and two make
four.'

'But certainly,' Matthew answered. 'No one is certain
that two and two make four. You may wake up to-morrow morning and
find that two and two make five. But a great spiritual power
working in us to increase us in wisdom, beauty, holiness,
generosity--that's more certain than any mathematics.'

Nicholas nodded. 'I won't contradict you. To me it's as though
you were repeating the sort of nonsense we learnt as
children--"The cat is on the mat"--"I have the pen of my aunt."
To me, Matthew, you're like a little round funny kitten who
thinks the world one large saucer of milk. But you can take this
from me--there is no spiritual world. Men are animal,
chemical, mineral, what you like--spiritual--Bosh! And we're
talking like a pair of schoolboys. Don't let's waste our
time.'

'No, we won't,' Matthew said. 'But I'm glad that we've said
what we have because now you must see why one of us has got to
clear out of this house. It's more than a personal difference of
opinion between us two. The whole world is divided as we are. And
now it's a fight in the open. You and the others like you think
meanly of men, you pride yourselves on your cynicism, your grasp
of reality, your humour, your refusal to be humbugged. You'd pull
everything down and build up some sort of scientific machinery.
Everything that we ever regard as essential you despise. You
think that we are humbugs when we say that we believe in God and
a spiritual world, that we are sentimental when we say that men
are noble and must think themselves noble, that we are silly
children because we think Heaven a practical possibility. It
is an open fight now, however concealed it used to be. You
give yourselves the right to say what you like when you think,
but if we open our mouths you call us impertinent.'

'Here endeth the Lesson,' said Nicholas.

'I don't care. You can laugh at me for preaching. But your
time of going about unchallenged is over.'

Nicholas got up.

'My dear chap, I don't mind you having your beliefs.
You can shout your gospel all over the place for all I care. It
doesn't harm me.'

'No, it doesn't,' Matthew cried excitedly. 'Not until it
touches you. But now it does touch you. It interferes with your
daily life and will interfere more and more. It isn't a theory
any longer. It's an active question of conduct. You come into
this house and, because you believe as you do, begin to break
everything up. You can't act otherwise. When you think our love
for one another an absurdity, our belief in one another romantic
nonsense, our ideals sentimentality, Fanny and Grace two silly
old women, Charles and me two idiotic old men, the children
ignorant, waiting for your wisdom--of course you, being restless,
conceited, idle, unscrupulous, set to work to destroy us. It's
quite natural. I don't blame you a bit. But I'm going to fight
you, Nicholas. I'll throw you out of this house one way or
another--' He banged his pipe on the side of the fireplace again
and it snapped. 'Oh, dear--that's my favourite pipe.'

Nicholas looked down at him, almost with affection.

'Why, I've never seen you excited before! I didn't know you
could be! Poor old Bottomley in his prime couldn't have done it
better.'

There was a long silence and, during that silence, both
realized that there was something actual in this--that it
was not merely a discussion or a quarrel. There was a deep
fundamental antagonism here, and a declaration of battle.

'Perhaps Charles can mend it,' he said. 'I mean what I say,
Nicholas.'

'Oh, go to hell!' said Nicholas.

Back in his own room and dressing for dinner the sense of
wanting to hurt someone grew with every moment. The events of the
day had hit his pride: Nell, mysteriously and without herself
knowing it; Mrs. Agar, because she had humiliated his personal
conceit; and now Matthew, because the silly old fool had shown
him a real fighting opposition.

'He'll kick me out, will he?' he murmured as he fitted his
studs into his shirt. 'I'll show him.'

And the climax of the day was a quarter of an hour later. He
was first in the drawing-room and Fanny was second.

She came up to him, flustered, excited, her face like a
child's, eagerly expressing her distress.

'Oh, Nicholas, you shouldn't,' she cried.

'Shouldn't what, my dear?' and he kissed her.

'No, I don't want you to kiss me. I'm cross with you. Oh,
dear, how I hate these things happening!'

'Now, Fanny, what is the matter?'

'You've borrowed from Charles again. That's the third time!
Oh, I'm so ashamed! You're my brother--I've been so happy to have
you here. I've been so proud of you. But this spoils everything.
Don't you see that Charles hasn't got it, the money, I mean? He's
so good and generous. He'd give his shirt away. But that's all
the more reason why you shouldn't ask him--'

'Now look here, Fanny--' he began.

But she was too deeply moved to stop.

'No, I mean it, Nick. That first fifty pounds you said you'd
pay him back at once, that you had money in Paris. But you
haven't attempted to. And then there was thirty--just before we
went away in the summer. And now this. It's too bad. It really
is.'

His lips tightened. He stood leaning with his hand on the
mantelpiece.

'Aren't you making rather a fuss about nothing, my dear? It's
only a hundred in all. Charles shall be paid the whole lot in a
month's time. Incidentally I thought the thing was in confidence
between Charles and myself: I didn't know he was going to blazon
it all over the house!'

'How silly! He isn't blazoning it. He tells me
everything.'

'Oh, does he?' Nicholas looked at her.

'Of course he does.'

'Well, that's what you think!'

She looked at him fiercely, as though Charles were there in
the room with them and she had her protective arms around
him.

'What do you mean? Of course he tells me everything. You're
always hinting at things, Nick.'

He blew the ash off his cigarette into the fire.

'Oh no, I'm not.' Then he smiled. 'Now look here, Fanny,
you're making a fuss about nothing. Charles and I understand one
another perfectly.'

She looked up at him pleadingly.

'Nick--promise me--promise me that you won't ask him for any
more money. He's a child about money. Come to me and talk things
over if you're in a hole--'

He put out his hand and took hers.

'All right, Fanny dear. I will.'

But she still looked at him anxiously.

'Nick--don't you think--oughtn't you to be getting a job of
some sort? You said you would. You're so clever.'

He withdrew his hand.

'Ah, I'm outstaying my welcome. . . . All right, I'll go.'

'No, no. Of course I don't mean that. The children love your
being here. So do I, of course, but all the same--'

'Yes, I quite understand.' He sighed.

She put her hand on his shoulder. 'I'm so sorry. I've been as
usual perfectly tactless.'

'No--it's all right. You're a brick to put up with me.'

But, at that moment, he made his resolve.

His own brother, his own sister! And he'd done nothing but
amuse them for months. He'd made this dull house a different
place. And that was all the thanks he got! They wanted to turn
him out. . . .

Well, they should have their lesson. He'd show them! Looking
into the fire, he thought of the letter, Charles' letter. He
thought of Grace, Nell with her love affair, Romney and his
desire for instruction. . . . The old woman upstairs afraid of
death. . . .

He had this house in his hands. He could do with it what he
wished.

They all came in--Grace, Romney, Nell, Matthew, Charles. The
gong sounded. He caught Grace's arm.

'Come on! Dinner! I'm famished. Now, Grace--we'll head the
procession!' And then, as they reached the top of the stairs, he
whispered gaily in her ear:

THE LETTER

It was now that Nicholas achieved his powerful domination over
Nell and Romney. It was as though he had not really tried his
strength until now. And yet, even at that, he need not put out
his strength exceptionally. His conquest was very easy.

He achieved it in all sorts of ways, but mainly in two--his
love of the Arts, his vision of London.

Romney and Nell also loved the Arts, but they possessed no
friend as humorous and as justly critical as Uncle Nicholas. He
seemed always to put his finger on the right spot. They were, for
instance, discussing the novels of Somerset Ball, who was often
roughly treated by the younger aesthetes. 'It's absurd,' said
Romney, 'to pretend they're jealous of him. There's nothing to be
jealous of. What exasperates them is his shamness. His work is
all iridescent, false in colour, brittle like those awful Moorish
rooms you see in Turkish Baths. It's even more glittering than
the real thing and all sham from ceiling to floor.'

Nicholas said: 'Now that's just it. The young always go
half-way and stop there. Ball's novels are shams--a sham
world--but something saves them, a real sense of terror, of
apprehension. He was frightened some time--you wouldn't think so
to look at him!--but he was, and there's real terror in
his Turkish Bath--something hiding behind the lattice screen.
Never mind how many pieces of coloured glass there are. He knows
what it is to be frightened--unlike all your splendid modern
young Siegfrieds who go cynically up the mountain although they
know the fire's false. Ball knows the fire's real. He was burnt
once.'

He gave himself up to them now with a freedom and a gaiety
that was enchanting. He was as young as they and infinitely
wiser. His passion for reciting poetry, that would have been so
boring in another, was only natural in himself. He would give
them a poem of Baudelaire's in Piccadilly and then make so
enthralling a story out of that unhappy man's life--his Oedipus
complex, the awful Mme. Aupick, his passion for his mother, her
love for him which nevertheless allowed her to keep him in penury
most of his days, the appalling Black Venus, Jeanne Duval, the
day when he gave his lecture in Brussels and because of some
allusion to 'virginity' in his opening sentences emptied the hall
completely save for one young man, of whether he were impotent or
no, of his lonely and piteous death--made, yes, so enthralling a
picture that they walked, all three, to Sloane Street with
Baudelaire and Hugo and d'Aurevilly in their company, coming at
last to earth with a bang into the society of a blind man with a
tin cup, a raucous young lad selling the Evening Standard,
and a pastrycook's window.

It was, in fact, London that he created for them in those
weeks.

Whatever else they will think of him, this at least they will
never deny--that he joined his genius to London's genius, and the
two together were something new, never seen by anybody before.
For he had genius, Nicholas had, when he was happy and
free. That was his tragedy--that he wasn't happy and free enough.
Just this week or two with Nell and Romney before he passed on to
other things, not quite so meritorious. . . .

They adventured all over London during that time. Looking
back, Romney will always see it as moving in and out of grey
cloud and fog, cloud lit with red streams of light, of sudden
cold crimson suns like fragments of lacquer; the town moved like
a gigantic ship. All London was London River because the sky made
it so. Hotels seemed like liners and he would never forget the
hungry blank-eyed warehouses in the glass of whose staring
windows a revolving light of some sky-sign would spring to life
in a grand flashing contempt and then spring away again.

They enjoyed the Fragonards at the Wallace and the little
Watteau called 'The Fountain' which, although they had both been
to the Wallace several times, they had never noticed before.

'Just imagine!' said Romney. 'I'm supposed to care about
pictures and this is the first time I've seen that gold statue
and the woman in white!'

They went to the Police Courts and were, in turn (so ardent
were their sympathies), a couple of lovers who had made the Park
their Paradise, an old lady with a recalcitrant daughter, and a
young woman who appeared, for the thirty-eighth time, on the
score of soliciting. They went to the Zoo and liked the Aquarium
best, for here bubbles of light broke, like golden rain, into the
heart of translucent water, and there was the king crab whose
shell is armour-plated but whose stomach is a paper napkin.
(Others have observed this besides Nicholas.) They had luncheon
in a very grand hotel where everything was counterfeit except the
anxious eyebrows of the waiter and the Crêpes Suzette. They
went on an omnibus up the Old Kent Road, where, outside the
Methodist Chapel, there is a sentence in big black letters on a
white board, 'God rewardeth the humble'--and the humble waited
patiently outside the butcher's shop and searched in the gutter
for cigarette-ends. They went to a Literary Party and found the
struggle for existence to be very bitter, but in Fortnum and
Mason's among the jellied tongues, the comfortable pies and the
bottled fruit, everything was tranquillity.

How did all these incongruities mingle? What do you make of
them, you disordered, sprawling city? London is the
boarding-house of the world. Upstairs the iron bedstead, the
looking-glass with the chipped white-painted frame, the strip of
shabby carpet, the text 'Thou God Seest Me,' but, downstairs,
lives an old bachelor who has in his wide spacious rooms a
Gainsborough, a Tang horse with a green saddle, butter-dishes of
George II. with handles like rose-buds, and the most beautiful
Chippendale chairs. And from his windows such a
view--bridges like spider-webs, skies of rose and amber, bronze
lions set about a fountain, and a church with a dome as big as
the moon, pearl-grey cliffs with pools of the faintest green. 'No
Noise Here. No Organ-Grinders Allowed.' But the street is rent
with electric drills, and great buildings fall, in showers of
dust, between scaffoldings of gleaming iron.

A policeman lifts his hand. The world stops.

Nicholas had, of course, the greater power over Romney just at
this time because of Romney's unhappiness.

The evening came when Romney took Nicholas out to dinner and
Nicholas took Romney out somewhere afterwards. This was an
important evening in Romney's life.

He chose a small restaurant in Albemarle Street because it was
very expensive. He knew that his uncle wanted the best. The room
itself was simple enough. There were not more than half a dozen
tables in it, and the waiter who cared for their needs was so
quiet that you heard his heart beat like a clock. He was very
firm about what they ought to have. The food indeed was excellent
but very quiet too. The windows were hung with dark purple
curtains and on the white walls there were some highly coloured
drawings by a Chinese artist. Between the windows there was a
cuckoo-clock which was homely and reassuring.

In this quiet place Romney told his Uncle Nicholas everything
just as he had told his Uncle Matthew everything--but he was very
much more at his ease with Uncle Nicholas, who was certainly not
shy and did not believe in God. He explained to Romney what life
had taught him about love--exactly as one man to another.

'You see, I'm a little handicapped about your story, Romney,
because I've never known any tender emotion towards my own sex.
It's been women with me all my life. Frankly any sentiment about
another man seems to me silly--a little out of drawing if you
understand what I mean. Men are physically very unattractive. I'm
sure you feel that yourself. What you were experiencing
was a sort of "Parsifal" business. Most boys go through it at
school. You came to it rather late, that's all. Although how you
can have seen the Holy Grail in that dull clodhopper
you've described to me I altogether fail to understand.'

Romney laughed. 'Well, I don't now,' he said. Yes--how
could he? He saw Harry now as a pair of golf stockings, a
pipe, and a leather armchair.

'Oh, well--we all go batty sometimes. I remember a woman once
. . .'

He explained his philosophy about women. Women were realists.
They wanted only one thing at a time, but what they wanted they
wanted like hell!

The thing to do then, if you liked them enough, was to give
them what they wanted and then, after mutual pleasure had been
taken, go away.

'That doesn't account for people like mother,' Romney
said.

Ah, no, Nicholas agreed. Sentimental women were different.
They needed sentimental men. But he, Nicholas, wasn't a
sentimental man. He abominated sentiment. All the evils in the
world came from it. All the bad art, all the bad thinking, all
the mush and the tosh and the slime of life came from it!
Nicholas hoped that Romney wasn't a sentimentalist. He didn't
think he was. If he was, then he must find a sentimental
woman as quickly as possible, marry her, have a lot of children,
and live happy, like a fly in sugar, ever after.

'But aren't there,' Romney asked, 'people in the world who
meet, love one another devotedly, and yet are not
sentimentalists?'

Yes, Nicholas admitted that there were. But these became
companions of the most realistic kind. And they were rare.

'Mind you, I say nothing against your father and mother,
Romney; I'm delighted, of course, that they are so happy. But I
have to admit that they are sentimentalists. And they belong to
another age than ours. At last,' he went on, enjoying his
excellent wine, 'we are beginning to understand that physical
delight between men and women is something by itself--to be
enjoyed to the full but never to be confused with the domestic
virtues. See things as they really are and life will be worth
while. But litter it up with sham mysticism and a God like a
spiritualist's tambourine and you're better dead. Take warning
from your Uncle Matthew.'

Without being at all sentimental he was compelled to feel a
kind of tenderness for young Romney. The boy was just emerging
from the shell. It was amusing and rather touching to witness. He
was not touched by the fact that Romney was unhappy. That
would be good for him and help him to get to grips with life.
Moreover that unhappiness would vanish after he had made love to
a woman or two. The boy was good-looking and intelligent and
would be attractive to women.

Here also was a further charm, for this education that he was
giving Romney would lead him finally from his mother's
apron-strings. To give Fanny a shock or two--for had she not been
tiresome and interfering?--was not an unpleasant amusement.

She had kept Romney altogether too close to her. He was too
much of a mother's darling.

The little bird sprang from its wooden door, cuckooed nine
times and returned to its home with a whirr of satisfaction.

'You see, Romney,' he said, 'the great thing is not to be
humbugged away from reality. See life exactly as it is. Don't
think that everything is different from what it is. That way lies
perdition.'

'Yes,' said Romney a little uncertainly. 'But what about
people like Blake and Emily Brontë?'

'Oh, Wuthering Heights!' Nicholas answered in disgust.
'I'm sick of all the flim-flam about that over-praised work. The
madness of a besotted boy. Because Bramwell wrote most of it, you
know. Nothing but fustian.'

'Well--there's King Lear.'

'Oh, Lear! Magnificent of course. But never was there a
completer exposure of sentimental nonsense. Lear is a sentimental
vain old man and Nature whips him for it. Gloucester's another,
and doesn't Shakespeare enjoy gouging his eyes out! . . . Well,
we must be getting on. We're going to visit some old friends of
mine.'

He had telephoned earlier in the evening to Dinah Brown, who
lived with her friend Florence Kirby in a nice flat in
Knightsbridge. They had said that they would be at home. He had
met Dinah in Paris some five years before and had promised her
then that he would visit her some time in London. This seemed to
him a good occasion.

Dinah and Florence were waiting for him. Their room was very
gay; there was a large doll in black silk on the crimson sofa,
there was a small white dog with a blue silk ribbon, there were
pictures of naked ladies on the wall, a roaring fire, many silk
cushions, drinks and a gramophone.

Dinah was thin, flaxen and talkative. Florence was dark,
plump, silent and smiling. Nicholas was at once at home with them
and sat on a sofa, one arm round each. Romney sat on a chair,
feeling most uncomfortable. Dinah shrieked and laughed and
shrieked again. After a while she took Nicholas away into another
room to show him something.

Romney and Florence stared at one another and said nothing.
Then, quite suddenly, Florence sat on his knee. In a soft husky
voice she said: 'Tell me all about yourself, darling boy.'

Romney told her a little, and after a while she suggested that
they should try the sofa. Romney longed passionately that
Nicholas should return. . . .

Florence was very affectionate. She told him that he was the
dearest, dearest boy. Her affection grew with leaps and bounds,
and he, in a misery of frustrated desire, behaved as he supposed
a gentleman should. The little white dog scratched itself in
front of the fire. The room became as hot and confined as Hell
must be.

After a long time affection languished and polite manners
returned. Florence, straightening her hair, said:

'Oh, it's a lovely piece. A gentleman friend took me the other
night, but I could see it again. I really could. What about
stalls one evening?'

Nicholas at length returned and, in a quick aside, suggested
that Romney should put a five-pound note on the mantelpiece,
which he did. Dinah kissed Nicholas. Florence kissed Romney.

In the taxi, Nicholas said:

'Well, my boy. Had a good evening?'

'Yes, thanks,' said Romney. But he was moving in the black
circles of despair. Gone for ever, yes, for ever and ever, was
the Holy Grail. No hope for him anywhere now. Not that he had
sinned--anything so grand as sin was surely not in question. But
the world of beauty, the world of his little sculptured negress,
the world of the spring evening that spreads its lovely cloak
over the homely misshapen body of mankind, was denied to him now
because he was not worthy to behold it.

'We must think nobly of ourselves,' Uncle Matthew had
said.

'They are not bad girls,' Uncle Nicholas remarked. 'Kindly and
all that. They have a pretty stiff time, I shouldn't wonder.'

After Janet's taxi had disappeared around the corner of the
church, Fanny had felt a quite desperate shock of being
abandoned. Their last words had not been very eloquent:

'Why, why, why, Janet . . .?' Fanny had asked. The tall bony
woman, in her Sunday clothes that fitted her as they might a
waxwork, said, looking fiercely from under her grey eyebrows: 'I
think it better, mum.'

'But why?' Fanny repeated. 'The Captain has apologized.
We shall miss you dreadfully. You won't find it too amusing, you
know. If you'd only give me an idea. . . .' And then she added
what she would not have added two months earlier: 'The Captain
won't be staying here for ever.'

Janet said nothing. She simply stared obstinately in front of
her, her hands folded over her umbrella. Then Fanny felt that her
under-lip was trembling, so she went on hurriedly:

'Don't you understand, Janet? You can't be so stupid. . . . I
can't--I shan't be able to get along without you. I depend on you
for everything--I--'

'I shan't be far away,' Janet said.

Then Fanny understood that Janet was doing this for a purpose,
that she had no intention whatever of abandoning the house and
the family for ever. She was expecting that something would
happen that would call her back. But what? What could
happen?

'You'll come back,' Fanny said. 'I feel it in my bones.'

'Maybe,' said Janet, staring in front of her. Fanny kissed
her, and off she went with a large brown trunk studded with brass
nails, a big worn hold-all and a pile of grim-looking black-bound
volumes of Good Words.

So the taxi turned the corner and Fanny was desolate. Of all
things, that was the last to be expected, that Janet would leave
her. But she hadn't left her. Fanny felt exactly as though Janet
were just round the corner with her brown nail-studded box, her
umbrella and her volumes of Good Words waiting for the
catastrophe to occur. But again, what catastrophe?

Then there was a new unexpected element in the situation.
Matthew stepped forward. Fanny and Matthew had been always great
friends--they had, from childhood, loved one another--but they
kept, on the whole, apart. They were both shy persons. They were
shy of one another. And now, for a long time, they had lived in
the same house, eaten together, talked and parted. It had been an
excellent arrangement. Fanny's idea of Matthew was that he was a
darling and a saint, but that his close companionship with God
made him rather a difficult companion for anyone else.

But now, quite suddenly, he was changed. One night he took
herself and Charles to the theatre, giving them supper at the
Savoy after. When he met her on the stairs or going out of the
house he said: 'Hullo, Fan! Is there anything I can do?'

He realized, she supposed, how deeply she would feel this
departure of Janet's. One thing he knew about her--that she was
quite helplessly dependent on human affection. She needed love as
a flower needs the sun--not a new metaphor but exact in her case.
She drooped, she failed, she lost all heart before hostility,
criticism, unfriendliness.

Then she was frightened. Was it because he saw that those she
loved were withdrawing from her that he came out now to help her?
Were they withdrawing--Charles, Romney, Nell, Grace, Janet? Janet
had left. Were the others going to leave her too? Did he foresee
that?

An afternoon came when he volunteered to go with her to a
meeting about Cruelty to Children. This was held in Mrs.
Pontifex's house, and the distinguished novelist, Somerset Ball,
was in the Chair.

Mrs. Pontifex had never been the same to Fanny since the
evening of the unhappy dinner-party--nothing had been
quite the same since that evening--but Cruelty to Children was so
terrible a thing that one must do all one can and sink Mrs.
Pontifex in the general cause. Morever, Fanny was a child at
heart and thought that it would be interesting to see Mr.
Ball.

Mr. Ball must have been taking Chairs since his bassinette
days, so exactly suited was he, by physique and temperament, to
that honourable calling. He looked, as Matthew observed, quite
incredibly 'right.' He was robust, red-faced, had a large shining
forehead and precisely the correct manner--friendly, modest,
cheerful, a little assured but a little shy too, a little
humorous and a little serious, an English gentleman through and
through--and, as so many of the ladies present felt, so very few
novelists to-day are gentlemen.

He introduced the principal speaker of the meeting--a small,
rather shabby woman to whom cruelty to children was an actual,
positive fact that had nothing at all to do with whether you were
a gentleman or no--in exactly the right manner. He told a funny
(but friendly) story about the Bishop of London, he alluded,
deprecatingly, to the folly of a man so stupidly ignorant of the
facts being in the Chair (but showed that he was pleased to be
there), gave his voice, that had been jolly (almost schoolboyish)
and we-are-all-friends-here-together, a note of true seriousness
when he said that, however wars and conferences might come and
go, this awful Child Cruelty was always with us--and then
introduced Miss Ellen Parker.

Miss Ellen Parker told such terrible stories (and they were
clearly nothing to the stories that she could tell) that
Fanny felt quite sick, seeing, as always, her own dear Edward in
these situations and herself powerless to help him. Before Miss
Parker sat down Fanny had resolved to devote her every spare
penny to this splendid cause, but then Mr. Ball spoke again, and
he was so reassuring, so comfortable, so friendly, that Fanny
felt at ease once more. It was as though he said: 'I'm not much
of a fellow, although you may think I am. These things that Miss
Parker has been telling you are quite awful, and no one
feels them more than I do. All the same, so long as I'm here,
things can't be so dreadfully bad.'

Pursuing the rather drab little byways behind Victoria Street,
on their homeward course, Matthew remarked: 'Now, if I ring the
bell of Number Nine and say, "Please tell me what you think of
cruelty to children, your notion of God, your true conception of
the Universe," they will call for a policeman.'

'Of course,' Fanny said, 'life couldn't go on if we behaved
like that.'

'Why not?' Matthew asked sharply.

'Oh, well--it couldn't. We have our daily jobs. If you kept a
barrow with oysters and winkles, Matthew dear, you wouldn't be
able to think of God as much as you do.'

'Well, then,' said Fanny rather wistfully, 'why doesn't He go
after everybody?'

'He does, but they have to give Him a chance.'

He shook his round head. 'I didn't like that fellow Ball. He's
done it all too often.'

'Perhaps,' said Fanny, 'he dislikes his public manner very
much. I've noticed with all public men that they have to
have a manner. I dare say they are ashamed of it when they are
alone.'

A thin fog, through which the autumn sunlight in cold sullen
splashes tried to break, crawled about the houses, the children
playing and a policeman writing in a little book.

'Fanny,' said Matthew suddenly and taking her arm, 'I want you
to do something.'

'And what is that?' asked Fanny, who walked with her head up,
her eyes shining, her hat a trifle askew, wondering whether she
would be home in time to give Edward his tea.

'I want you to ask Nicholas to take his leave of us.'

He felt her arm stiffen under his. She turned to look at
him.

'Why--don't you like him?' she asked.

'No. You know I never did. But that isn't important. Brothers
often don't understand one another, and certainly Nicholas and I
never could. That has nothing to do with it. I
would never have said a word had I not been sure that he is a
danger to all of us, that he is going to make us all very
unhappy.'

'Oh, Matthew--do you really think so?' she asked.

'I do. And there's no time to lose.'

'Why--what is he doing?'

'He's breaking us all up. He's setting us all against one
another. I know I've no right to speak. I've kept to myself so
much and led my own life. I've been selfish, I suppose, although
I didn't think so. But I mean it. Fan. Nicholas has no
morals, no scruples. I don't say that he means to do harm,
although I think that sometimes he does. He can't help himself.
He has no rules to go by. All he wants is to be fed and kept, and
he has a kind of malice, a sort of humorous malice--'

'I'm not speaking against Nicholas now. I'm simply speaking of
him as he is. I don't blame him. That's how he's made. But
we've got to look after ourselves. We've got to look after the
children. Soon, if you don't look out, he'll have broken us all
up, spoiled our love for one another, ruined our lives
perhaps.'

Fanny felt that he was trembling.

'And there's no time to lose either. He's hard up. I don't
believe he has a penny. He has nowhere to go. He won't work. All
this puts him in a bad humour. He'll vent it on us, and
especially, Fanny, on you.'

'What do you mean? What have you heard?'

'Never mind. I know he's plotting something. He despises the
lot of us, and in a way he's right, because he's much cleverer
than we are. But you and Charles can get rid of him. And you
must.'

'But Charles likes him. He didn't at first, but now he does.
And Romney and Nell like him. And Granny. And Edward.'

'All the more reason to get rid of him. That means he has all
the more influence. Can't you see, Fan? Can't you see how
you and Grace and Romney and Nell have all changed in these last
months?'

'Have we? Have I changed?'

'Of course you have. Have you been happy lately? Ask
yourself.'

'It's only Janet going and--'

'And why has Janet gone?'

'Yes, I know. But that's only her tiresome obstinacy. Nick
apologized to her most handsomely.'

'More of his cleverness.'

They were at the door of the house. Inside, before they went
upstairs, Matthew put his arm around her and kissed her.

'Get rid of him,' he whispered.

Fanny was greatly disturbed, but there was more trouble
coming, for as she stood in front of the glass taking off her
hat, Charles put his head in through the door.

'Can I come in?' he asked.

'Why, of course.' She smiled round at him, delighted to see
him, as she always was.

Then she saw that he was cross. He stood in the middle of the
floor, his hands in his pockets, his broad body swinging slightly
on its stout legs.

'Look here, Fan. What the devil did you speak to Nicholas for
about my lending him that money?'

She sat down suddenly.

'Oh, dear--why shouldn't I?'

'Why shouldn't you? What business is it of yours?'

'It is business of mine,' she said, almost fiercely,
swinging round towards him. 'It isn't right that you
should go on lending Nicholas money.'

'Well, what of it? I'm his brother-in-law, and if I choose to
lend him money, what the devil has it got to do with you?'

They looked at one another and like people who, knowing one
another very well and loving one another very deeply, see a
quarrel inevitably approaching, they were both frightened.

Fanny turned back to the mirror.

'Oh, of course it doesn't matter. If you want to lend Nick
money, it's your own affair. In my opinion it's time he got
something to do and went elsewhere.'

'Upon my word--!' Charles pulled himself in to collect
himself. 'I don't call that very gracious, Fanny. It isn't his
fault he hasn't got a job. He's been trying. As a matter of fact
the house has been twice as amusing since he's been in it.'

She turned round again. One of her tempers was rising. She
could see it approaching like a white-capped wave across a sullen
sea.

'Oh--who says I've not been myself?'

'Oh, nobody exactly, but--'

'No. I want to know.'

'Well--Granny and Romney--'

'Romney?'

(So her own son, her child whom she had carried in her womb,
her little boy--he had also criticized her!)

'Oh, nothing much--' Charles was of course uncomfortable.
'You're playing the game you always play--shifting the subject. I
came in here to say it's not your business what I do with
my money--'

She ducked her head in the rising, towering temper, felt the
crash, heard the roar, emerged breathless to a quiet but very
hostile contemplation of Charles.

'Of course you're to do what you like with your money.
Give it all to Nicholas if you want to. Only--would you mind
telling me?--you seem to be in his confidence--how much
longer is Nicholas staying here?'

Then Charles was uncomfortable. He loved Fanny so much that
even when he was angry with her he hated to see her unhappy.

'Oh, look here, Fanny. Don't be cross. I didn't mean to be. I
didn't really. Only--I can't understand what's happened. When
Nicholas came you were delighted. I remember that first evening
when Gran and I were rather doubtful about it you were quite
angry with us.'

'On that first evening--that spring evening,' she murmured,
'everything was different.'

'It isn't,' Charles went on, scratching the back of his neck,
'as though Nicholas has been tiresome or anything. Neither he nor
his girl have been the least bit in the way. I must say he's
awfully good company.'

But she was still exasperated. Men! Their stupidity, their
bovine complacency and the dull herd-like way they stuck
together.

'Defend him as much as you like,' she said. 'Of course I love
Nicholas, but allow me to remark that I've known him a great deal
longer than you have. Matthew's right. He's the laziest man on
the face of the globe.'

'Oh, I see!' Charles cried, suddenly furious again. 'Matthew's
been putting his finger into this, has he? What the hell has
Matthew got to do with it?'

'Nothing,' said Fanny, 'except that he's my brother and
doesn't like to see me unhappy.'

'And I don't care a damn, I suppose?' Charles shouted.

'You needn't shout, Charles. I can hear perfectly well.'

And in answer to this Charles, quite properly, went out,
banging the door behind him.

Fanny sat in front of her mirror and cried. She never loved
Charles so much as when she had quarrelled with him, behaved
abominably, felt herself to be in the wrong but was determined
not to say so. Thus it was now.

She bathed her face, brushed her hair and went to see Edward.
Here things were no better. Edward and Lizzie were bending, their
heads close together, over a book. Edward was also in the middle
of his tea. He looked up when he heard her come in, and his mouth
was stained with strawberry jam. Then he shut the book. Fanny's
curiosity was strongly aroused. Lizzie gave her one of her
grown-up, superior but friendly glances. She and Lizzie had been
friends for some time now, but rather as the missionary is
friends with one of the wildest and most uncertain of the native
tribe.

'I'm so sorry I'm late, dear. Father came in and kept me.
What's that you've been looking at?'

'Nothing, mother.' (Couldn't she understand that when he and
Lizzie had some amusing thing between themselves they wouldn't
want to share it? Besides--it was Lizzie's affair. It was
Lizzie's book.)

But Fanny did not understand. She was certain that the book
had improper pictures. She advanced.

'Let me see, darling,' she said.

But Edward laid his hand on the book.

'It's Lizzie's book,' he said sulkily.

'May I look, dear?'

'Why, of course, Aunt Fanny.'

It was not in the least improper. It was a very fine French
volume about Marie Antoinette's Court, and there were many
coloured illustrations. Fanny found herself looking into the
unpleasant features of Cardinal Rohan. She felt foolish, and that
Lizzie was laughing at her.

She went out, dignified, her head up, but feeling more
desolate than ever. How very, very different was this from the
old teas when Edward cut the top off his egg and told her all
that had occurred during the day.

On the way to the drawing-room she put her hand to her
forehead and for a moment paused. What is happening? Why is
everything going wrong? Matthew was right. Something terrible is
preparing.

And then, on opening the drawing-room door quietly, expecting
to find them all at tea, she saw instead a queer sight. The tea
was over--it was later than she had supposed. But Nicholas was
there. He was standing in front of the spindle-legged table with
the glass top that contained small bijoux--the jewelled crucifix,
the silver snuff-boxes, the miniature with the pearl border, the
gold snuffbox with the picture of the hay-making on the lid. . .
.

The glass top was open. Nicholas stood staring at the
contents; in his hand was the gold snuff-box and, even as she
came in, he had slipped it into his pocket.

'Nicholas--whatever are you doing?' she cried.

He turned. He took the box out of his pocket. He was perfectly
composed.

'Do you mind, Fan darling, if I take this and look at it? I'll
only keep it an hour or two.'

'Why, no--take anything you like--'

He turned it over in his hand, looking at it.

'It's so lovely. . . . One never can see things in a case.' He
smiled at her. 'You didn't think I was stealing it, darling, did
you?'

'Stealing it! My dear Nick--!'

'Oh no--you might. I wouldn't blame you--I do steal things
sometimes--if they're beautiful and neglected by their owners.
After all, everything lovely ought to be with someone who
appreciates it.'

'Yes, I suppose so.' (She was thinking: 'I believe he
was stealing it. He knows that I think so.') She turned
back to the door. 'I must be getting on. I've a thousand things
to do before dinner.'

But he came up to her.

'Fan--what have I done? Is it taking that money from Charles?
I hate you to think badly of me.'

So when they were children he had come to her, exerting his
charm, begging for her sympathy when he had done something
disgraceful. And she had given it him always.

But now she was too honest. Matthew's words were still in her
ears. There was the quarrel with Charles. And there was the gold
snuff-box. She looked him full in the face.

'Yes, Nick . . . I think you've stayed here long enough.'

'I see. Well, of course, if that's what you think--'

She was tempted, as she always was, to soften. But she
remembered that Janet was gone, and she saw the heads of Edward
and Lizzie bent over the book. . . .

'But if I don't go, Fanny dear. . . . Charles wants me
to stay.'

'Of course,' she said quietly. 'So long as Charles wants you
to stay, that's settled.'

He brushed past her and went out of the room.

He had a capacity for hatred, and now, in the next quarter of
an hour, he indulged it. Lizzie was on her bed, reading.

'It's only your aunt who does--and your dear Uncle Matthew.
That's why we're staying. One part of the family against the
other.'

But she spoke of something different. 'Abel stopped me in the
street and spoke to me to-day,' she said.

'Oh, did he? What did he say?'

'I was to tell you he wanted some money.'

'And what did you say?'

'I said I'd tell you.'

Then she began, quite passionately:

'I hate him to speak to me in the street, papa. You always
said he mustn't. And Edward was with me.'

'Oh, he was, was he? How was that?'

'I go sometimes and meet him when he comes from school.'

'Oh, you do! Quite a pretty friendship.'

'Yes, I like Edward. And he wondered who Abel was and why he
spoke to me. Please, papa, you must stop him speaking to me. I
hate him. I'll slap his face if he does it again.'

She went back to her book.

In his own room he took out Charles' letter. He read it
through again--then, looking up, he was startled. Curled up on
his pillow, fast asleep, was Becky Sharp. The cat was a small
black cloud on the whiteness of the pillow. It was as though
something had grown out of the bed and belonged to it.

'Shoo!' he said, 'Shoo!' waving the letter at it. It did not
stir and he was conscious of a strange reluctance to touch it.
But he picked it up and it moved silkily, stretching itself like
a snake. He put it on the floor, opened the door, and it slipped
out.

He looked at the letter. Well, why not? He had always had
something of the kind in his thoughts.

His curiosity was warm in him like a wakening vice. What would
Fanny do? How would Charles behave? This would shake some of dear
Fanny's complacency. Her brother was not good enough to remain
under the same roof with her. He had an impulse of intense
self-pity. For once in his life he had tried to behave
decently--he had been kind, thoughtful of others, he had brought
pleasure and fun and excitement into this house that had been
drab and bored. He knew that Charles had been bored; if it were
not so he would never have written letters like this one. They
were all fond of him save only Fanny and Matthew. Were it not for
Fanny he might find some little job in London--not too
arduous--and settle down here in the house. But Fanny and Grace
and Matthew--what a heavy-footed, psalm-singing trio! It would do
Fanny good to realize that Charles was not always her good
devoted slave, would take her down. . . . She would be kinder to
others perhaps if she suffered a little herself. . . .

And, after all, there was little harm in it. Only a joke.
Charles would explain, Fanny forgive. Would she? It was that that
decided him. How would Fanny behave? Would she keep it to
herself? She might. You never knew with these sentimental
women!

He went out, knocked gently on Fanny's door. He looked in.
There was no one there. On her little writing-table he saw a pile
of papers, bills, receipts, odds and ends.

It happened on that particular evening everything was very
gay. The family had not been in such high spirits for a long
time.

This was due to Nicholas, who was at his very funniest,
kindest and most considerate. How kind indeed he always was when
he was happy! He committed crimes only when he felt that he was a
prisoner! To-night he shed his monkey-self, and Matthew, watching
benevolently and even, rather clumsily, joining in, confessed to
himself--'Were Nicholas only always like this.'

Happiest of all was Fanny. After the discomforts of the day it
was wonderful to find, so unexpectedly, this radiance. Her
principal happiness came from the thought of her approaching
reconciliation with Charles. Reconciliation! That was almost too
big a word. Their quarrel had been such a little one.

But she knew that he also was thinking of it--the touch on the
shoulder, his arm, strong beneath his pyjama-sleeve, coming round
to her, drawing her nearer, his kiss, so familiar in its
roughness and strength and lingering affection, close upon her
mouth.

After dinner Nicholas proposed Charades.

'But, Nicholas--' Grace protested.

He saw in her large frightened eyes that she suspected that he
would use the charades to make fun of her. He went up to her and
put his arm around her fat shoulder.

'Come, Grace dear, you and I shall be in the first charade.
You and I and Charles--'

'Oh, I can't act, Nicholas. You know that I can't.'

'Wait and see. You'll be marvellous.'

And so she was. She was exactly herself. She came in across
the drawing-room floor, dropping her bag, her handkerchief, and
keeping up a stream of chatter. . . . Nicholas, in an absurd cap
and with an eyeglass, proposed marriage to her and she was
fluttered, agitated, happy just as in real life she would have
been. He was kind that night. He frightened her only once.

'Euphemia, Euphemia, I know you love me--you write me such
beautiful letters!' and everyone laughed because of course
everyone knew how dear Grace received letters from her gentleman
in Winchester.

Charles was just himself, a big kindly St. Bernard sort of a
man who discovered that Nicholas was married already, struck him
to the ground and carried Grace off in triumph. Fanny, in the
audience, thought that he had never looked so splendid and that
the wrinkles about his eyes showed his goodness. It was absurd
perhaps for two old plain people to love one another so dearly,
but there it was. Love, gathering strength as it goes, outruns
Venus and Adonis.

Then Nicholas made Fanny, Nell and Matthew act with him. Fanny
was the postmistress in a rural village (very rural),
Matthew Nell's father, Nicholas Fanny's gay and philandering
husband.

Fanny was emotional enough and excitable enough to throw
herself, heart, soul and body, into a thing like this. She acted
splendidly, inquisitive about the letters, sharp with the
flirtatious Nicholas, kindly with the rather stupid Matthew--and
Charles, watching her, beamed with content.

'Is there any woman in the world like her?' he thought. 'A
little childlike at times. She's never grown up entirely. That
only makes her the more lovable. These clever sophisticated women
must be the devil to live with.'

Fanny herself tried no longer to resist Nicholas' charm. He
was her old dear Nick--the real Nick, she told herself,
kind, generous, impulsive. She would be more generous herself in
her view of him. . . . At the end of the charade he kissed
her.

'Fan dear, you're a born actress.'

'Oh, am I?' she cried, delighted.

'You're marvellous. If Charles loses his money there's a
career waiting for you.'

She delayed it. She sat, in her little room, brushing her
hair. The door into their bedroom was open. He called once:

'Coming, Fan? I'm in bed.'

'All right. In a minute,' she answered.

She moved, fussing with the things on her writing-table. She
turned over some bills. 'Oh, I'd forgotten that one,' she
thought. 'What a bore!'

Then she found something in Charles' handwriting. At first she
thought that it must be one of his old letters to herself,
escaped, in some way, among her papers. She read:

. . . Of course I know that these early morning hours are bad
for truth. Nothing is real, daylight-real. And yet this is
real I think--that I hunger for you as though I were a boy of
twenty, to hold you in my arms as though you would never leave
them again. The folly of an old married man! But I did not know,
until now, what it was that all my life long I had missed. This
love is different from any other that I have known and I am the
wiser, the richer . . .

She stared at her face in the little gilt mirror. Then she
hung her head. She shivered so that the rings on her fingers
rattled on the gleaming glass of her dressing-table. She read the
letter through again with the glaring attention of a lunatic as
though every word had a secret meaning. There was no woman's name
in the letter. No address. It might have been written years ago.
Then she remembered a sentence: 'When my wife comes back from her
cruise . . .'

She put the letter in a drawer in the table and locked the
drawer.

At last she went into the other room. She saw with
thankfulness that Charles had turned on his side and was quietly
sleeping. With very great care she crept into bed and lay there,
not touching him, staring with hot eyes into the dark.

Hector, Nell's young man, dressed from head to feet in black
tights, over his eyes a black mask, bent forward as though he
were rowing, and shouted, in chorus with seven other young men,
'Seventeen.' Bent back, crying 'Eighteen,' forward again,
'Nineteen.' As he moved, a fat woman, also in black, beat on a
drum. A tall thin man in red tights and with a red mask came to
the front of the stage and called 'Finish!' The curtain came
down. This scene represented 'Flight from Satiety.'

Inside the dirty dishevelled room where he dressed with the
seven other young men, Hector was attacked by Hamish Bennett,
who, stripped in front of the ugly little looking-glass, rapidly
took the paint from his face.

He was a strong broad-shouldered man and his chest was covered
with hair, so that it was unexpected to hear him cry in a shrill
voice: 'Oh, damn and blast these Americans! It's they who're
responsible for all the bloody mess! Why don't they think
of someone but themselves? And look at them! Despised by the
whole of the world! My God, if they could see
themselves!'

Hector, who liked the Americans, said: 'Why should they bother
about us? Do we bother about anyone else really? Of course
we don't. We're all the same. America has to fight for her life
just as we have for ours. We're all fighting and we'll go on and
on until . . .'

'Until what?' said Hamish sarcastically.

'Until we believe in God again.'

'God?' said Hamish. 'I didn't know you'd turned religious,
Hector.'

'I haven't turned anything. Only I'm not just a damned
microbe. You're not either, Hamish, although you look one. We're
both immortal. When everyone everywhere gets a sense of values we
won't want to quarrel about bread, gold and all that nonsense.
There'll be more important things to think about.'

'I've got to live, haven't I?' said Hamish, pulling his shirt
over his shoulders.

'Of course. You'll always live whether you want to or no.'

Hamish danced down the room, naked save for his shirt.

'I've got to live! I've got to live! I've got to live!' he
shouted. Then stopped in front of Priestley, the wealthy member.
'Tom, lend me a quid until Monday.'

It was a matinée and Hector went through a biting
driving wind to his home. He was thinking of two things, his
poetry and Nell--and they were both the same thing. In his poem
he had reached the section that he called 'Interlude in Heaven.'
Here, in a land like a Toy Village, God the Father, St. Peter,
Dante and an old village-woman took tea together and played at
bowls. The green sward stretched like glass in front of them,
bells rang the hours, the shepherd cared for his sheep on the
hill. God the Father played bowls and allowed St. Peter to win
because he cared so much about winning. The moon rose over the
clover-scented fields.

In and out of this scene Nell moved. He could not keep her
away. That luncheon with her uncle, he reflected, had been the
decisive factor in their action, for now they had been for three
week-ends to a village near Lewes. They considered themselves now
to be man and wife. They loved one another with every day more
dearly, but she was, he knew, not happy. The deceit troubled her.
At her home she had invented a family with whom she went to stay,
and because they all (except her Uncle Nicholas) believed this
absolutely she was the more unhappy. Also she was most
unhappy about Lottie. She wanted to tell Lottie everything
because she said Lottie liked and trusted her.

Hector, who knew his Lottie, was not sure that she either
liked Nell or trusted her. How much did Lottie know? What did she
suspect? Oh, hell! what a world this was! How simple it ought to
be. He did not love Lottie, and Lottie did not love him. He
did love Nell, and Nell cared for him. Well, then! He
never went to the flat now without thinking: 'To-night I will
tell Lottie everything. We'll have this out. We'll clear this
up.' But it was not so. Lottie was too clever for that.

What a jumble! God and St. Peter, Nell and Lottie, and this
rotten, rotten play that ran on and on for no reason at all. His
beautiful poem and Lottie as he saw her to-night lying on the
sofa, eating chocolates out of a bag and saying:

'Hector darling, take me to the pictures tonight.'

'Oh, let's stay in. . . . I want to work a bit.'

She did not protest. She sat up and looked at him.

'I've been spending the afternoon with Nell and her nice
uncle.'

'Uncle? Which uncle?'

'The new one--the wicked one.'

'How do you know he's wicked?'

'One can see it with half an eye.'

'What did you do?'

'We went to the pictures.'

'Oh--then you can't possibly want to go to them again
to-night.'

'Of course I can,' said Lottie. 'I could go to them all day.'
She bit into a chocolate. 'I love Nell. She's so sweet.'

'What did her uncle talk about?'

'Oh, nothing particular. He will though. When we know one
another better he'll tell me all sorts of things.'

'What things?'

She leaned forward and looked at him.

'Wouldn't you like to know?'

Later he sat with paper on his knee near the smouldering fire.
He had given in. He was to take Lottie out at nine. Meanwhile God
the Father, watching while St. Peter trundled his wood, looked
down on the little earth. It was now a wild garden thronged with
thirsting plants, and the faint sound of its running water came
up like the murmuring of summer flies. His new creatures with
whom He was experimenting were lonely. They were lost children
without their Father.

It was His turn. He took the brown smooth ball in his palm and
bent forward. . . .

On the following afternoon Hector and Nell had tea together in
a funny underground café off Bond Street. The café
was called 'The Good Companion.' It consisted of three long thin
rooms and it was always lit by lights that gloomily failed to
give enough illumination. The walls were of a sombre dark green.
It was a perfect mausoleum of a café; two ladies conducted
it. They were plainly nice ladies, but they were harassed,
anxious and unpunctual; they smiled continually, but their sad
thoughts were far away from their smiles.

Nell detested this atmosphere of secrecy in which herself and
Hector were now constantly involved. She hated it and was
determined to end it. Nevertheless she could think of nothing at
first save that she loved Hector so desperately. They sat on the
same side of the table and held hands, which is a childish thing
to do perhaps, but a help when you are frightened. In their
golden fairness, youth and slenderness of body they must, it
seemed, to two female Argus-eyed tea-drinkers close by, be
certainly brother and sister. Then said one, in a hot whisper:
'They are holding hands.' They were therefore not brother and
sister.

'Hector, I want you to know,' said Nell, 'that I shall always
love you--whatever happens it will never change. I wouldn't have
said this before because I know how love changes. But now I'm
quite certain--whatever happens.'

'Why do you say,' Hector broke in rather crossly, 'whatever
happens? Don't you see that nothing can separate us now?
What an awful thing to keep saying!'

She pressed his hand. Here was the tea in a tea-pot with roses
and a cracked spout, and there was a toasted bun, dry and
hostile. They could hold hands no longer.

Nell sighed. 'Things can't go on like this, can they?'

'I don't know,' said Hector. 'They probably will for a bit.'
Then he added: 'Your Uncle Nicholas has been meeting Lottie.'

'Oh yes,' said the lady and went away, not to return again for
many a day (or so it seemed).

'Something has happened. Mother is one of the bravest, most
generous, finest people in the world.'

'Yes, I know, I know.'

'She's had a dreadful shock. No one has noticed it yet but
myself. I know her so much better than the others--even father.
At first I thought she might have found out about us. But it
isn't that. Then perhaps that she was missing Janet so badly,
because certainly everything is changed since Janet went. But it
isn't that either. She is doing everything she can to appear the
same. She laughs and talks as though she were acting.'

'What do you think it is?' asked Hector.

'I can't imagine. She's shy. She's still very young in lots of
ways--much younger than me very often. And I've often imagined
her saying to herself: "Everything's all right however
upside down the world's getting so long as Charles and the
children love me." Yesterday I thought Romney had done something.
He's changed too, very snappy, snarls like a dog if you ask him
to pass the butter. I thought it might be Romney. But it isn't.
It's something worse.'

'I tell you one thing that it is,' Hector said, catching
Nell's hand again. 'The world being unsettled makes private lives
unsettled. No one is secure any more. They don't know what will
be happening to them in six months' time. Perhaps your mother's
worrying about money.'

'Oh no, it's worse than that. She wouldn't bother, so long as
we had enough to eat, if she lived in a basement off the Old Kent
Road. She's one of those women who build their whole lives round
one or two whom they love. If that goes everything goes. But why
should she worry? Father isn't changed. We're not changed. She
knows we'll always love her.'

'If it were that,' said Hector slowly. 'If she knew
that we'd been living together, and if the only way to make her
happy was for you to give me up--would you?'

Nell shook her head. 'No. . . . She'd have to see that I
couldn't. I think she would see.'

'Maybe,' Hector said, 'your uncle has done something?'

'What--Uncle Nicholas? What could he do?'

'I don't know--I scarcely know him. But I have the idea that
he could do a lot. That day when we lunched with him influenced
us, didn't it?'

'No, I don't think so.'

'It did. Not directly. He just gave us a little push along the
way we wanted to go.'

She shook her head.

'I don't think Uncle Nicholas has anything to do with it.'

Then they parted. They rose out of the basement into the upper
air, and when Nell climbed on to an omnibus Hector looked after
her as though never, never would he see her again.

Nell, inside the omnibus, thought for a little while of
Hector, holding him in her slender arms, pressing her cheek
against his, then turned her mind towards her mother.

She saw things very clearly, as clearly as the stout
fishy-eyed old gentleman in the blue suit sitting opposite her.
He looked at her as though he would very much like to be her
friend. Once when, by accident, their eyes met, he smiled. How
hateful almost all men were! Only Hector was perfect. She was
aware that she was faced with two urgent problems, both of them
old ones and very familiar to her in the pages of fiction. In
real life they were different. They were problems with which her
generation was supposed very effectively to deal. The sexual one
she had known, of course, from her childhood. No more nonsense
for her generation about marriage; if you loved a man you went to
him. But, in actual practice, it did not work out like that. She
had no conviction of sin, for she was, so far as she could
actually see, doing Lottie no wrong. Nevertheless she was now, in
every hour, betraying her sincerity, her honesty, and worst of
all, her courage. She had always supposed that if ever this
situation arose she would treat it bravely. As it was she was
anything but brave. She wondered whether after all the old rules
had not something to be said for them. She frowned at the old man
in the blue suit and, for the moment, dismissed problem number
one.

Problem number two--mother and daughter. All the modern novels
were concerned with the struggle between parents and children.
Children went their own way, parents complained and grieved. But
now, in her own case, there was again a difference. She almost
worshipped her mother. It had seemed that they could discuss
anything together. But now there was some real trouble, and Nell
discovered that she was much younger than she had thought that
she was. They--she and Romney--had always patronized their mother
a little. Such a child, so impetuous, so unsophisticated! But now
Nell realized that her mother had lived, had known birth and
death and enduring love and loneliness and companionship with a
reality of experience that Nell, herself, had not begun to know.
Never mind the generations! Here it was a matter of living, of
fidelity and courage and patience. How could Nell share her
mother's trouble as she wished to do? For the first time she was
convicted of her own youth; for the first time she saw something,
if only a glimpse, of the courage that women need if they are to
arrive, undefeated, at the other end.

In the drawing-room she found that Mrs. Frobisher was
approaching the end of what had evidently been a lengthy call and
that her mother and Aunt Grace were assisting her to do it. Mrs.
Frobisher had just performed that most maddening of all acts in a
caller--she had risen and then sat down again.

'Why, there's Nell!' she cried. 'I haven't seen you for ages,
dear. How well you're looking! And so I said to the doctor that
Cyprian had been ever so much better when he was drinking
Contrexéville. Of course it's expensive--one and three a
bottle--but it really had done the boy good--no doubt of
it at all--but would he listen? Not he. So I changed the doctor
and the new man is very clever, very clever indeed. He has
started Cyprian on a diet of worms.'

'Worms!' Grace cried, quite horrified but fancying that the
phrase was, in some way, familiar to her.

'Oh, not the ordinary worms of course. They are special pink
ones to be found only in the South of France--near Nice
somewhere, I believe. You take them in a paste and they don't
taste too bad. I tried some myself just to encourage him. He's
so good, Cyprian! He does everything he's told without a
murmur.'

Fanny said something.

'Well, I must be going. We're dining early and going to the
Queen's Hall. I adore music--almost any music. After all, if they
play a dull piece it is such a splendid quiet chance to think of
other things.'

She departed, and Grace went too.

'Well, dear,' Fanny said. 'Have you had a nice afternoon?'

'Yes--very.'

'What have you been doing?'

'I had tea with a friend in Bond Street.'

There was a pause; then Nell said:

'Mother dear, you look tired.'

Fanny smiled. 'Yes, I have a little headache.'

'Look here, darling. Have your dinner sent up to you. I've
noticed you haven't looked so well the last few days.'

(She was thinking as for three days now she had been
ceaselessly thinking: 'To-night I will tell him about it.
To-night I'll challenge him.')

Nell turned away.

'That's right. I'm awfully glad.' She walked a little about
the room. She stopped, idly, looked down at the glass-topped
table. 'Why--where's the gold snuff-box?'

'Isn't it there?'

'No.'

'It's being cleaned, I expect.'

Fanny stayed by the door.

'Yes, I think I will go to bed. Explain to them,
darling, will you?'

In the silent room the echoes of many secret things seemed to
linger. The Japanese screen, the Bonington, the little silver
boxes--they knew what Nell didn't know. They were old,
they were wise. Nell was young, ignorant. Life seemed to her
suddenly to be terrifying with its hidden underground movements,
its disregard of human suffering, its mocking of tragedy. Nell
set her shoulders. 'Well, it shan't beat me!' she
thought.

And now, as events developed, Charles Carlisle received the
shock of his life.

Coming down from his carpentering shop to search for a hammer,
he saw that a small bed had been put up in Fanny's dressing-room.
There it stood, white, chaste, aloof, scornful, and stared back
at him.

Fanny was at her table, writing. He shut the door behind him.
He could scarcely speak for astonishment.

'Fanny, what does this mean?'

She turned, holding a pen aloft, meditating. 'Monday would
do,' she murmured. 'Monday afternoon.' Then she said very calmly:
'What is it, Charles?'

He did not know that her heart was hammering, that she had
been anticipating this moment with a frozen horror of what this
interview might be, of the things, fatal perhaps to both of them,
to which it might lead.

For now surely she would tell him. She had thought it all out
down to her minutest action. The letter was in the drawer. She
would extract it, hand it to him and say very quietly: 'This is
the reason, Charles.' But she did not move. She sat there, the
pen poised in her hand.

'Why--' he stammered. 'This bed . . .'

She looked at him. His gaze faced hers without flinching. He
did not look a guilty man.

'Oh yes--I've not been very well lately. I thought that--for a
little while--I would sleep in here.'

'Not been well--what's the matter?'

'Oh, nothing. I haven't been sleeping. I've been bothered by
the fear of being restless and keeping you awake.'

'Keeping me awake? Nothing keeps me awake. You know
that.' He came close to her, put his hand on her shoulder.
'Fanny--you're not still angry. That ridiculous little
quarrel--'

'Oh no, of course not.' She was trembling. She bent forward
over her letter.

When he felt her trembling he tried to draw her towards him.
She resisted.

'Fan, there is something the matter! You're trembling.
What is it?'

Now was the time! She knew it. She faced it as though
Fate, a dark silent watching figure, stood before her. Had she
spoken! But she did not. She was a coward about the consequences.
And something more than that. A new foreign element was entering
into her, some creature bred of jealousy, unhappiness and a
sudden sense of power.

Charles would be unhappy now. His uncertainty would disturb
and bewilder him. He would have to think of her as for years he
had not. His conscience, which must now be awake like a wound,
would ache in him as she herself was now, with every minute of
the day, aching.

So she pushed the moment aside, not realizing that nothing
stands still.

She began again to write her letter.

'It's nothing, Charles. Only I haven't slept for three
days.'

He bent forward and kissed her cheek.

'Poor dear. Only--the first time since our wedding night.
Couldn't you . . .?' A new shyness, delicacy, prevented him. He
kissed her again and went away.

But now indeed Charles had something to think about. He forgot
that he had come down for a hammer. He climbed slowly the stairs
and sat down in his happy attic on the old horsehair sofa with
the hole like a fungus in its middle. Around and about him stood
all his friends--the table that he had carved, the chairs, a
little wobbly on their legs, the long bench with his tools, an
old sword and two guns hanging on the wall, the wide attic window
that embraced that familiar beloved view of roofs and chimneys
and the changing restless sky. But he saw nothing. He sat
forward, his hands between his knees. What was the matter
with Fanny? He had asked himself that several times of late but
never so urgently as now. Separate beds! But there must be
something serious in it for her to take, without consulting him,
such an action. If she was unwell, had not been sleeping, why had
she not talked to him of it? What was it that had grown up
between them of late?

Amazingly he did not fly to the proper cause. He did, for a
moment, think of that spring affair, but immediately dismissed
it. He had forgotten that mislaid letter. The whole episode was
to him like a coloured painting in some house that he had once
visited. He did realize that it had been the last kick of his
youth. He welcomed it. He was glad that his youth was ended; he
saw, very clearly, that there had been something comic, absurd,
in his moment's ardour. He fancied now that, from first to last,
she had laughed at him--kindly laughter (for truly she had been
kind). During these last six months he had been happier with
Fanny than ever before. It was as though that episode had been
needed to show him how fundamental, how unique, how
all-embracing, all-important his love for Fanny was.

And because he knew how faithful to Fanny until death he now
would be, he never for an instant supposed that she did not know
it also. Moreover it was impossible that she should be aware of
the affair.

So he cast round for something else. He was not either by
nature or training at all subtle about his fellow human beings.
He was one of Weininger's rare instances of the complete
male.

Nevertheless, like all Englishmen who are completely male, he
was mainly boy. He still reasoned as he had done at school, still
cherished as fiercely irrational prejudices, was still enchanted
with the victory of his own side at cricket or football or
tennis, could still be amused for hours by trifles that would
seem to a grown man of another country proper only for the
nursery.

He had, also, as befits the Tom Brown type of Englishman, a
warm generous heart, very easily moved; he believed emphatically
in England, the public-school system and Mr. Baldwin.

It was part of his character too that he could not bear to see
others unhappy.

When he was unhappy himself he suffered acutely, for he had
still something of the child's sense of limitless torture--a bad
toothache and Fanny had to remind him that it would soon be over.
And so, because he suffered himself, he felt that others must
find things unbearable. He wanted everyone to be happy, and now,
when there was so much unhappiness in the world, he moved about,
puzzled, bewildered, as he did when he read in one of the more
vicious of the Sunday newspapers about the torture of some
child.

So that now, sitting on his old sofa, absent-mindedly
whittling away a piece of wood with a pocket-knife, he was deeply
distressed. Fanny was unhappy; she had been unhappy, he now saw,
for a long time. Why? Was something wrong with one of the
children? He was not aware of anything. It was true that Romney
seemed a little out of sorts. He sighed here. He wished that he
had more of that boy's confidence. He was in a mess, maybe about
some girl, and was shy of telling his father about it. But
fathers now were companions for their sons; that was one of the
few advantages of these modern days. And yet he himself was shy
with Romney. Come to think of it they never did anything
together, went out of an evening, or watched a cricket match.
Romney would not care for cricket matches, and this was perhaps
the heart of the trouble--that Romney's taste was not his
father's. Charles, although, like most modern parents, he had
learnt to be cautious with his children, could not understand
those queer paintings and carvings that his son preferred. And
yet he was proud of Romney's taste. How could an old buffer like
himself be right about modern art? He still enjoyed music with a
tune, a novel with a story, a picture with real scenery and
people like life. But he understood that things must move on,
that Romney's world could not be his world. Until lately he had
thought that they had found a compromise, but now he was more shy
of Romney than he had been. . . .

Realizing that, he was suddenly afraid. Fanny, Nell, Romney,
even Grace. He was not at his ease with them as he had been six
months ago. And, as he had done so often in the past when he was
troubled about something, he went downstairs to see his
mother.

That old lady was now applying all her energies to fighting
her disabilities. Do what she would, assert her pride, fiercely
try to maintain her old proud independence, her
weakness--physical weakness, not spiritual--increasingly invaded
her.

To-day she was in bed, and when Charles came in she tried to
conceal her excessive joy at the sight of him. But she could not
help herself. Her eyes filled with tears; her dry bony hand
clutched his, and, as he sat at the side of the bed and she saw
his thick strong body, looked with maternal love at his kind ugly
beloved face, she wanted to hold him there, to keep him beside
her for ever and ever because it was only with him that she felt
really safe.

She found now that it took almost all her time and strength to
control her pain, and this was the harder because she had had,
through her life, so little experience in this. The pain was not
severe, but it visited her in many forms, now a cramp in the left
leg, now a thick pressure on the heart, now neuralgia above her
left eye; it was as though there were some actual person there,
some enemy who took delight in torturing her--not severe torture
but a sort of threat to her of what he could do if he tried. And
behind everything was the constant fear that, in a little while,
the tortures would be more severe, that they would beat her down,
subdue her pride, and make her one of those whining, complaining
old ladies whom she had, all her life, so thoroughly
despised.

Charles sat beside her. He put his arm around her and she
leaned up against him, feeling the strong bulwark of his chest,
the steady beating of his heart.

'Well, mother--has Moffatt been?'

Moffatt was the doctor whom Mrs. Carlisle tolerated best, but
she didn't tolerate him very much.

'Oh yes--he's been.'

'What did he say?'

'What would he be likely to say?--"Oh, you're getting along
nicely, Mrs. Carlisle." Nicely! I wonder how he'd feel if
he had my leg!'

'Oh, I don't want him to be soft-hearted. Only not to
tell me lies. If I'm dying why doesn't he say so?'

'Of course you're not dying, mother.'

'Oh no--I'll beat them yet. I'm good for another ten years.'
She held his hand very tightly. 'Charles, you do think that I'll
get well again, don't you?'

He bent forward and kissed her forehead. 'Of course I do,
mother.'

'I slept better last night.'

'That's good.'

She looked at him sharply.

'Charles, what's the matter?'

He looked at her, smiling.

'Nothing.'

'Yes, there is! Fanny being tiresome?'

Then he burst out with it; he could not conceal it if he
wished. It was exactly as it had been when, a little boy in
knickerbockers, his ship had been broken by Tommy Brook, the boy
in the neighbouring house. She saw that and was at once
delighted, forgot her pains, her fear of death, did not care so
much what his trouble might be so long as he should tell her of
it.

'No, Fanny's not tiresome, of course not. She never is. But
she's queer.' He shook his head. 'What do you think she's done,
mother?'

'I don't know,' she answered triumphantly. 'She's been queer
for a long time.'

'She's put up a bed for herself in her own room.'

Mrs. Carlisle's hand tightened on his.

'All these years--' Charles' voice shook a little. 'The very
last thing in the world I'd have dreamt of!'

'What reason did she give?'

'Oh, she said she'd been sleeping badly and was afraid she was
keeping me awake. But that's all nonsense. Nothing keeps me
awake!' (He was proud of this.) 'Over and over again one of us
hasn't slept well, had a cold or something, but we've neither of
us minded.

'And it isn't only what she's done but the way she looked at
me when I asked her about it--almost as though we were
strangers.'

'How very odd!' said his mother. She could not quite keep the
satisfaction out of her voice. She liked Fanny of course--a good
woman, a very good woman--but for years she had been
jealous. She had fought her jealousy with much bravery and common
sense, but she had not killed it. She had not even wanted to kill
it. And she had all the pleasure now of finding a virtuous person
in the wrong.

'I think it's monstrous of Fanny,' she said, settling herself
a little more comfortably against Charles, as though she felt
that she owned him now more completely than she had done five
minutes ago.

'Monstrous! Of course it isn't! Fanny must have her reasons.
She always has.' For a moment once again the spring episode of
his infidelity flashed through his mind, only at once to be
dismissed.

His mother, although she knew nothing of it, was thinking of
the same thing. There was only one cause for good wives to move
their beds, and that cause was sex. She looked at Charles. But
no. He could not be unfaithful! She had of course never
wanted him to be, but she had, once and again, wished that he
would give Fanny a little shock!

'Have you been quarrelling, dear?'

'No. Not really. We had a few words the other day about my
giving Nicholas money.'

'Ah--Nicholas. He seems to come into everything.'

Charles considered Nicholas. Then he shook his head.

'Oh no, it could be nothing to do with him. The only trouble
he's made was over Janet. Of course that made Fanny unhappy, but
the old woman has been getting above herself lately--thinking she
runs the house.'

'Ah, well!' Mrs. Carlisle sighed with satisfaction. 'My advice
to you, Charles, is to leave it alone. Fanny will soon come
round. She's got some silly idea in her head.'

'No, but she's unhappy. I hate her to be unhappy.'

'You're too soft, Charles. You always have been. You give in
to Fanny over everything. You can't say that I've ever
interfered, although I've often wanted to. You know that I'm very
fond of Fanny--very fond indeed. But I do think she's a little
self-righteous. She's no right to do a thing like this and give
you no reason. And you've been so good to her all these
years.'

No, by Jove, she hadn't. His mother was right there. Fanny
couldn't do a thing like that and leave him in the dark. That
wasn't playing fair, and for Charles, in spite of the spring
episode, to play fair was simply the rule of life.

'No. I agree. She ought to tell me,' he said, and his mother
had joy in her heart, for this was the first time that Charles
had ever complained of Fanny to her.

She patted his hand.

'You leave it alone. Fanny's a sensible woman. She's got some
idea in her head--nonsense, I don't doubt. Women are funny
creatures. When they want something they'll take any steps to get
it.'

'But what can she want?'

'Who knows? More power, I dare say. She thinks it's time she
had you under her thumb.'

'Oh, absurd!'

'It isn't absurd a bit. I felt just the same about your father
at one time. Oh, I behaved abominably!' (She remembered it with
satisfaction.) 'I plagued him and worried him until the poor man
didn't know where he was. Women are like that from time to time,
especially with anyone they love. It will come right, you see.'
(She hoped it wouldn't come right too soon.)

She turned on her side with a little light breath of pleasure.
Her leg wasn't hurting her at all. She might get up a little
later.

There was one strange part of this house that has not yet been
described. This was the conservatory. It had been constructed in
Victorian days: there had been a time when all over the country
the Crystal Palace had been the cause of panes of glass that
flashed in the sun, and gardeners' pots in smirking rows, strings
of little green tomatoes and maidenhair ferns as delicate as
spiders' webs. Somewhere about that time this conservatory had
been appended to the Westminster house. It had never belonged to
the house, and that was perhaps its grievance--is the grievance
of so many conservatories.

Someone had come who cared for flowers and had done what was
possible, but the light was wrong, the glass was smoked by
neighbouring chimneys, the tomatoes perished, the chrysanthemums
wilted, spiders wove their webs in the dusty corners. Only one
large, hideous triumphant palm with leaves like dusty green
blotting-paper prospered and was, it seemed, immortal. From time
to time someone said: 'Let's destroy the conservatory,' and when
a child had lost its ship or its horse someone said: 'Look in the
conservatory.' Romney, aged eight, after being beaten by his
father, stayed there for six hours and caught a cold from the
heat. There was an old blistered watering-can, three numbers of
the Illustrated London News and the legless body of a
negro doll. No one went there now, and the light, under the grimy
glass, was London in a perpetual fog. It smelt of mice, the palm,
a laundry and the desert. When the door opened little spirals of
dust, from the empty boxes, blew in the air.

But Charles, passing it now, saw that the door was open and,
looking in, found, through the dusty murk, the surprising figure
of Grace busily engaged on one of the boxes.

He was amazed. When she heard him she jumped.

'Oh, Charles--how you startled me!'

'Why, Grace--what on earth are you doing here?'

'I'm planting seeds.'

He was close to her now and could see that her forehead was
grimy, her hair dishevelled, and there was a streak of grey on
her cheek.

'This is a new adventure,' he said.

'Would you mind shutting the door?'

He closed it.

'I know you'll think me very foolish, Charles, but I can't
help it, and it does no one any harm.'

'No, of course not.'

'You see, I was passing one day and I looked in and it was so
deserted. No one's bothered about it for years and years, and I
thought it was nice to have some flowers again. It's all gone
dusty just as I have!'

'My dear Grace!'

'Oh yes--you know I have, Charles. And one great interest that
I had--well, I haven't got it any longer. Of course there
are things I could do, like visiting children's hospitals
and Housing and things like that. There are lots of things
want doing of course!

'But work like children's hospitals means going among a lot of
people who, I'm sure, don't want you and look down their noses.
No one wants an old woman like me.'

'Nonsense, Grace. You're not old!'

She nodded her head vehemently.

'Yes, I am. Suddenly. Something's happened--' She stopped.
'Never mind that. But I was very upset about something and then I
had this idea about the conservatory. Flowers can't watch you and
laugh at you and hold something over your head.'

He put his hand on her arm.

'Grace, dear--what are you imagining? No one's watching
you or laughing at you.'

'Oh yes, they are though! If I were younger and had more
energy I'd be able to deal with it, but I can't. I've been very
nervous lately, and the conservatory's safe anyway.'

What on earth was the matter with her? She was looking at him
almost maliciously.

'Well, anyway,' she went on, 'women don't have much of a time,
Charles, and that's a fact. But flowers--there's nothing much
wrong with flowers. I've planted seeds in all these boxes and
there'll be a fine show one day, you'll see. I do hope you don't
mind.'

'Mind! Why, of course not! But, by Jove, it's hot in
here!'

'Yes, it is, isn't it? But you soon get used to it. It's not
at all a bad conservatory, only nobody's taken any trouble with
it for years and years. I'm sure it's delighted that somebody
should.'

'You must let me get you some plants and things.'

'Oh no,' she replied eagerly. 'I want to do it all
myself! I've got several books and there's a man in the shop
where I get the seeds who's most helpful.' She went on with her
work, taking up a little paper packet, then planting the seeds
with the utmost care, bending over the box with absorbed,
concentrated attention.

He watched her for a little and felt, although he was anything
but imaginative, as though the place really had some kind of a
life, as though the palm and the rows of dusty boxes waited,
saying: 'Now you're not to interfere. This kind lady is bringing
us to life again.'

'It's a bit musty,' he said. 'Don't you mind the smell?'

'No, I don't,' she said. 'I like it.'

So he left her to her work, a green shadow in a green
shade.

But this was a queer day for him, and he was not accustomed to
queer days.

The next thing that happened to him was that on the landing he
encountered a man. Matthew being what he was, Charles was
accustomed to finding unusual people on the stairs, but this man
was indeed most unusual, for his hair was so black, his
face so brown and he wore a shining black suit. He was, of
course, a foreigner. He was about to descend, but instead he
stopped and smiled.

'I beg your pardon,' Charles said.

'Oh, not at all.' The little man had something of an American
accent. But he was not an American. He was quite clearly, in
Charles' opinion, a dago. It was probable that he had been
stealing something.

So Charles said: 'Is there anything I can do for you?'

'Oh no, nothing at all, thank you. I have been to pay a visit
to my friend Captain Coventry.'

'Oh yes,' said Charles.

'Thank you very much. Good afternoon,' and the little man went
on downstairs.

Charles had never quite approved of the fashion in which
strangers went up and down the stairs of the house, but, after
all, Matthew shared in the expenses, and Romney had his own
friends and Nell had her friends. But this was the oddest
one yet.

He heard the hall door close. The man was out of the house.
Then, after hesitating, he went and knocked on Nicholas'
door.

'Come in,' said Nicholas.

Nicholas was lying, stretched out on his bed, dressed only in
shirt and trousers, looking up at the ceiling.

'Hullo, Charles!'

'I say, Nicholas, that's a funny friend of yours just gone
out.'

'Yes, isn't he funny?' said Nicholas, 'and damned funnier than
you know, Charles my friend. The little bastard's in a hole and
I've been helping him.'

'Oh, that's all right,' said Charles, 'only I thought he might
be someone stealing the spoons.'

Nicholas sat up.

'Oh, he would steal them if he got half a chance! I've
been taking his skin off for coming here. He won't do it again. I
knew him in the West Indies. He's up against it and I did what I
could, but I'm a likely one to help anyone, aren't I?'

'Excuse my coming in like this,' said Charles, moving to the
door.

But Nicholas stopped him.

'Don't go for a minute. That chap put me out, daring to come
here like that. He's part of my bad past.' Then after a pause he
said, smiling: 'Have you got a past, Charles?'

'I?' said Charles. 'No, of course not.'

'No mistresses or anything?'

'Why, no. What an idea!'

'Well--I wondered. It's you quiet devils who are the worst.'
Then he went on: 'Look here, Charles, let me have another thirty
quid. I swear it's the last time I ask you.'

Charles looked uncomfortable.

'I'd rather not, Nick. You see--'

Nicholas laughed.

'Fanny been lecturing you?'

'No. It wouldn't matter if she had.'

Nicholas nodded.

'I quite understand. Of course if you haven't got it--' Then
he said cheerfully: 'What a row Fanny would make if she thought
you had a past! Lucky you haven't. . . .'

Charles slowly coloured.

'Let's leave Fanny out of it.'

'All right. Only I know why you won't lend me any more money.
You can't kid me.' He went on chaffingly: 'I shall go to Fanny
and tell her you've got six mistresses. One in Bayswater, one in
Chelsea, one in--'

'Charles,' Nicholas said softly. 'Please lend me another
thirty. I'm in an awful hole, but any time now that Spanish job
will be settled and then you shall have all your money
with interest. I won't tell Fanny,' he added.

'Oh, damn Fanny!' Charles said. 'She doesn't run
me.'

They looked at one another.

'All right,' Charles said suddenly. 'You shall have it. But
it's the last time, remember.'

Nicholas lay down on the bed again.

'You're a damned good sort,' Nicholas said. 'Even though you
have got six mistresses!'

The result of the little conversation with Nicholas was that
Charles resolved that not another day should pass without a full
explanation from Fanny.

At what had Nicholas been hinting? Why had he, Charles, quite
suddenly given Nicholas the money when he had been firmly
resolved to give him no more? Nicholas could not, of course, have
known of the spring episode, and yet it was because of his own
guilty consciousness of this that Charles had given him the cash.
Well, he would have a guilty conscience no longer.

And yet--what courage it needed! Fanny had said quietly 'Good
night' (they had not kissed) and then had closed the intervening
door. He had lain in his bed realizing for the first time that
this coming conversation might very easily be a crisis in their
lives. How was it that until now he had been so blind as to the
effect on Fanny of what he would tell her? Perhaps already she
knew! No, but she could not. Perhaps there would be some
simple, trivial explanation and he need not tell her. And all
through this he lay flat on his back, his ears straining for some
sound, his heart hammering, his head hot, his feet cold.

'Now!' he said to himself, and he got out of bed. He stood
listening (but for what he did not know). He heard the clock
ticking, as though it had been asleep all day and lived only in
the night. He was a coward. He was trembling.

He put on his dressing-gown and slippers and went into her
room. Here he stood (remembering vaguely Othello), and heard no
sound but the beating of his heart and Fanny's gentle, regular
breathing. He knew, though, that she was not asleep, that she was
aware that he had entered the room, that her heart was hammering
even as his.

'Fanny!' he whispered. 'Fanny!'

There was no answer.

He went to her bed, sat down on it and touched her.

'Please, Fanny,' he said. 'I want to talk to you.'

He switched on the light above the bed. He saw then that she
was lying on her side, with her face to the wall. He touched her
again and she turned round.

'What is it?' she said. Her eyes were filled with tears, and
as he looked at her one tear rolled down her cheek. That moved
him so deeply that he bent forward and caught her in his arms,
held her closely against him, saying:

'Darling. Darling. Don't cry. You mustn't. What is it that is
hurting you? What is the matter? What have I done?'

She wiped the tear from her cheek, moved gently but with
determination out of his embrace, sat up:

'No, Charles. Please,' she said. 'I'm tired.'

He moved away from her, angry at her repulse.

'I'm sorry, Fan,' he said. 'But we've got to have this out.
You're not going to sleep away from me like this without a very
good reason.'

'I've told you my reasons.'

'What--that you've a cold or something! And that's why you're
crying, I suppose.'

She made no answer.

'Now look here,' he went on, 'I won't touch you. I won't come
nearer you than this. But also, I won't go away. I have
got to know. I'll stay here all night if necessary.'

She looked down at her hands, which were tightly clasped in
front of her.

'There's nothing to explain,' she said.

'There's just this to explain. For more than twenty years
we've been happy. We've never had a quarrel that mattered. Do you
remember? We settled years ago that we would never let the day
end without a reconciliation if we had been at odds. And
we never have. That's the truth. Until a few days back, we never
have. And now, quite suddenly, without a word of explanation, you
separate yourself from me. Don't you know that I love you,
that I love you more every year, that without you I'm a lost
man--'

'That isn't true!' she interrupted. 'That isn't true!'

'But of course it's true! It's the one thing that is
true about me!'

She looked at him, then away from him across the room. She
waited, staring in front of her.

'Very well,' she said at last. 'I'll show you why it isn't
true.'

She got out of bed without touching him, walked quickly across
the room to her desk, opened a drawer and took out a letter. She
gave him this, then sat down in an armchair near the fireplace,
looking away from him.

'My God!' he said at last. 'So that's it!'

When she heard that, she knew that he had written the letter.
She had, of course, always known, and yet, through these days,
she had had mad hopes that it might be a forgery, a joke, a . . .
she did not know what!

'Yes--that's my letter,' he said.

She turned half towards him.

'Written this year?'

'Yes.'

He sat staring at it.

'I was going to tell you--I--I came in to tell you now.'

'Then you knew that I had seen it?'

'No. Of course not.'

'Then why didn't you tell me before?'

'I had forgotten all about it. You mayn't believe it, but it's
true. Something Nicholas said today made me suddenly wonder
whether it was that that was making you so unhappy.'

'Who is she?' Fanny asked.

'Here--come back to bed, Fan,' he said. 'You're cold. You're
shivering. Come to bed. I'll sit in the chair.'

She made no answer and no movement. He took the eiderdown and
put it over her shoulders.

'Who is she?' he repeated. He was reading the letter. It
appeared to him quite incredible, and he realized now, with a
shock of almost terrified dismay, how it must seem to her.

He pulled himself up. He must be cool, concentrated, collected
as he had never been in his life before.

'She's nobody. She's nothing,' he said. 'I haven't seen her
for months. We parted once and for all in--when was it?--in
April.'

She said nothing. He went on:

'It was a crazy thing. It meant nothing at all. It was when
you were on that cruise. I met her at the theatre; she was a
woman in a flower-shop, a decent, kind sort of woman. Quite
ordinary.'

'Did you live with her?' Fanny asked.

'I went to her flat in the evenings. I slept with her--if
that's what you mean. It was entirely a physical thing. The one
and only time I have ever been with any woman except yourself
since our marriage.'

He paused, but she said nothing.

'You've got to understand this, Fan. You've got
to. I know that the things in this letter are monstrous. They
seem so to me now. I can't believe that I ever wrote them.
But still, there they are. I can't deny any of it. What's more, I
can't explain it either. It wasn't as though she was beautiful or
clever or anything--except that she was kind. She wasn't in love
with me herself a bit--in fact, on looking back now I think that
she must have laughed at me. She was a woman who thought those
things unimportant. It isn't pretty, I know, but what you
must understand, Fan, is that it doesn't mean anything. It
was a moment of madness I had, and then in a few weeks it was
over.'

'How can I tell that it's over?' Fanny said. Then she added to
herself: 'Last April--that lovely day.'

'How can you tell? You can only believe me if you try to
understand me. It was like a kind of illness. I caught an
infection.'

'At the time,' Fanny said, 'while it lasted, you believed in
it.'

'Believed in it? Yes, for the moment. One believes in a fever
while one has it.'

'How did it end?' Fanny asked.

'Quite simply. I woke up. I realized that I didn't care in the
least about her, except that I was grateful because she was so
kind to me.' He was simple-minded enough now to praise her. 'She
was never kinder than that last time. We had tea, she gave me
back my letters, we said good-bye.'

'Not all your letters,' said Fanny.

'No. I told her then that I had lost one, and she said that
she wondered that men could be so careless. She really was
kind and generous, Fan. She said you must be splendid--'

'She dared to speak of me!' Fanny cried.

'Oh, well--she had seen long before that I loved you and only
you--'

Fanny interrupted:

'I don't want to hear about her! I don't want to hear about
her!'

He got up and stood near to her, not daring to touch her.

'Fan, don't let this make any difference. Don't.
Don't.'

Fanny looked up at him, bewildered unhappiness in her eyes. It
was as though she were asking him to help her out of this and yet
could not trust him to help her.

If Nicholas had seen them, he would have thought them quite
unwholesomely sentimental, getting out of the scene all that they
could, enjoying their own self-pity. And he would have been quite
wrong. They were, both of them, much too simple-hearted to think
of anything except the danger that they were running--the danger
that they would not love one another any more. If it was
sentimental for them to realize, as one of their deepest
experiences in life, that there is nothing so fine and so
valuable as trust, love and confidence between two human beings
who have lived long enough to know what life is, then they were
sentimental. But there is nothing nearer to God than love of this
kind. So 'sentimental' is the wrong word to use about those who
are in fear of losing it.

'Well, Fan?' Charles said at last.

She tried to smile.

'Well, Charles?' Her face, as a rule so rosy, was white and
marked with shadow. Her broad, heavy figure, the eiderdown draped
untidily about it, was hunched up in the chair. He, with his
grey, tousled hair, his eyes anxious but loving, gentle, simple,
his brown dressing-gown with a torn pocket--they were not perhaps
a romantic pair. But they were in most serious distress.

'You've been very honest,' she said at last. 'If I could
understand it better. . . . But--how can I? I've never trusted
anyone in my life as I have you. I've built my life up on
trusting you. I've always said: "Well, anyway there's Charles."
Nicholas said not long ago that one is wrong to trust anybody. I
see now he's right.'

She twisted and untwisted her hands.

'I remember--in the spring--one day when I was shopping, there
was a woman I was talking to. When I told her how we all lived
together, she said that couldn't last--not in these days. I
laughed at her. I thought she little knew how united a family we
were. Well, she was right too. We're not united. In these last
few months we've all broken up. We're none of us happy any more.
We don't trust one another any more. I've seen this, I've known
it, but I've always said as long as you were there, Charles,
nothing could really be wrong.'

'I am there, Fan,' Charles said.

He was dreadfully distressed. Always before, when she was
unhappy, he had been able to put his arms round her and comfort
her.

'No.' She shook her head. 'Not as you were. You can't be
again. I expect that that's my fault. I ought to be a modern
woman. Every book, every play, every paper--they all say the same
thing now--that married people ought to take infidelity lightly.
But I'm not young. I can't change from believing the things I
always believed.'

He broke in: 'Yes. Yes. I don't want you to change!
We're neither of us modern, and what's more, the things we
believe in are real things, Fan. What I want you to see is
that I haven't been unfaithful to you. It was only my
body--for a moment. As though I'd gone off on a drunk for a
week--'

'Yes,' Fanny said. 'But if you had it wouldn't be you.
Just as this isn't you, not as I've always thought you
were. I don't hate you or despise you. But you've done this
once--you may do this again--'

'No. Never, never, never!' he cried.

'Yes, but you may. Perhaps all men do. I don't know. I know so
little about men. You're the only one I've ever loved. For a few
weeks you loved her as you've never loved me, even at first. You
never wrote me a letter like this.'

'It was better, finer--altogether different with us.'

'Perhaps I'm jealous,' she said slowly. 'Perhaps I've wanted
what that woman had.'

Then she cried, her head in her hands.

He tried to comfort her, kneeling beside her, holding her with
his arm. But he could not. Nothing that he could do just then
could touch her. So at last he kissed her.

'Go to bed, Fan. Fan, darling--I love you so much more than I
ever did.'

But he could not come near her. He fancied that she did not
even hear him. So, very miserable indeed, bewildered even as she
was, he went back into his own room.

Young Romney, during these events, was regarding himself as an
exile from the common life of the human race.

He was not alone among his generation in thinking of himself
thus. Only last year Eddie Battin had tried (not very
successfully) to commit suicide, and had explained afterwards
that his act had been in protest at the atrocious conduct of the
late War by his elders.

Gordon Gummeridge, two years ago founder of the Byron Club at
Oxford, wrote frequently, for the daily journals, articles of the
deepest pessimism, simply saying that everything was in ruins and
it would be better to end it all. The generation younger than
Romney's (now honouring the upper forms of the Public Schools)
thought this all rather silly, when a new kind of aeroplane was
invented almost every day and motor-racing was every Sunday
faster than it had been the Sunday before--but their time was not
yet.

Romney's unhappiness was quite real. He felt himself degraded
and repulsive. He had failed with Harry, he had hated those women
introduced to him by Nicholas. His hatred of them was not normal;
on the other hand, he had no friend now anywhere. He wanted
neither mistress nor friend, and his loneliness was
appalling.

It was natural, therefore, that Nicholas' influence over him
should now be very powerful, for there was no one, besides his
uncle, who understood his trouble. Moreover, Nicholas was
exceedingly kind to him. Nicholas showed in his relationship to
Romney an understanding, sympathy and generosity that he bestowed
on no other member of the family. Here at least he was unselfish,
for Romney, at this time, was not at all entertaining. But they
were, Nicholas explained to him, in a way, both outcasts from the
family.

'You can't talk to either your father or your mother frankly,
can you? Well, neither can I. Something stops us. They are not
close to real life. No one is in our family except you and
I--and possibly the Old Lady ill upstairs. We're different. Oh! I
don't mean sexually. You must put it right out of your head that
you're abnormal, Romney. You're not a bit. But we're artists,
both of us. Beauty means more to us than anything else in the
world. I think your father and mother are the best in the world,
but they don't care for beauty, do they? One can't pretend they
do.'

No, one couldn't, although Romney had never quite thought of
it in that way before. He began, without knowing it, to take
sides with Uncle Nicholas against his mother. Of course he loved
her, but the trouble was that she didn't understand modern life.
It was only since Uncle Nicholas had been in the house that he
realized it. Then Uncle Nicholas borrowed small sums of money
from Romney--nothing very much, but Romney was proud that he
should ask him. Uncle Nicholas was very frank about himself.

'I'm a complete rotter, my boy. I don't say that it's
altogether my own fault. Things have been against me a bit. But a
rotter I am and a rotter I shall remain now, I suppose, until the
end. I can't keep my word. I borrow money (I'm too damned
good-natured), and worst of all, I see things as they are. It's
my passion for honesty that keeps me crooked. I see things so
clearly. Most people are such humbugs about religion and morality
and affection. I'm not a humbug, but I am a rotter. I love
women, I borrow money, I can't keep a job. What's to be done
about it, my boy?'

And so Romney grew very fond of him. He was the only friend
just now that he had.

Only one thing distressed him a little, and that was that his
uncle had seen the little carved negress in his room and had gone
into ecstasies over it. And then he had borrowed it. 'Only for a
day or two. Just to look at it.' And Romney missed it, missed it
most terribly. And he hadn't the courage to ask for it back
again.

He was growing, too, very worldly-wise under his uncle's
instruction. He was becoming a first-rate business man and sold
pictures twice as well as he had done. If they were not always
very good pictures, what did that matter?

And then, early in December, there happened to him a very
queer little adventure. He was returning to the house about four
in the afternoon, when he saw Lizzie emerge and start walking
quickly down the street. Lizzie was a child with whom he had made
no terms at all. He was himself too self-distrustful to make
friends easily with children, who like their elders to be
confident; and then she was so silent, so old for her age, and,
he was sure, disliked him. Now for some reason--to rid himself of
his dreary self-preoccupation, perhaps--he decided that he would
follow her a little way. It was not curiosity that drove him, but
possibly something touching in her childishness and even in a
suggestion of loneliness that corresponded with his own.

Lizzie turned the corner, passed into Dean's Yard and then
waited at the School gate. Romney quickly caught her up.

'Hullo, Lizzie!' he said.

She was wearing a simple grey frock and a rather large grey
hat with a blue ribbon. The hat looked too young for her. She did
not appear to be at all surprised at seeing him, but gave him a
quiet, polite and distant smile.

'What are you doing here?' he asked.

'I'm waiting for Edward.'

He was surprised.

'Why--have you some message for him?'

'Oh no. I often wait for him. We go for a small walk before
his tea.'

'Does he like your waiting? I should have thought the other
boys might laugh at him.'

'Oh yes--at first he did not like it at all, so I would wait
in the door of the Church there. But now I know many of the boys.
They are so very odd in their dirty tall hats.'

Romney was greatly interested.

'Then you and Edward are great friends?'

'Very great,' she said, looking at him, he thought, rather
contemptuously.

He felt that he ought to go--that she did not want him to
remain there at all--but this was the first private talk that he
had ever had with her. She was so quietly composed that he felt
ashamed of his own complainings.

'Have you liked staying with us?' he asked her.

'Not very much,' she said. 'Except for Edward and Aunt
Fanny.'

'Where do you like most to be?'

He felt that his questions were extremely silly and that she
thought that they were.

'What I should prefer,' she said, 'would be to be quite
by myself. I wouldn't mind Edward,' she added.

'And your father?'

At that she withdrew entirely inside herself, as though she
had entered the grey stone wall of the School and
disappeared.

'My father? Oh, he is different,' she said.

There followed then an awkward silence.

'My God, how she dislikes me!' Romney thought, and felt that
he was spying on herself and Edward and that he had better go
home. But he said:

'Would you come with me one day? We could go and look at some
pictures.'

She came out of the stone wall and gave him a most unexpected
smile.

'Thank you very much.'

'Do you like pictures?' he asked.

But she didn't answer, because the boys came out with a rush.
They paid no attention to Romney and Lizzie. Edward appeared, and
with him a lanky freckled boy who knew Lizzie, talked to her as
though they were very old friends, and vanished. Edward did not
appear overjoyed to see his brother.

'Well--I must be going,' Romney said.

'You can come with us too,' Lizzie said. 'Can't he,
Edward?'

'Right-oh,' said Edward indifferently and began at once a long
narration:

'It was just what you said, Lizzie. Baldwin offered to swop
the dog if I'd let him have the watch as well, but I said no
bally fear--I knew it was the watch he really wanted, and if I
work it I can get another for Christmas, but the tools and the
watch was a bit too much, so I said he could have the hammer and
the chisel and the watch, but not the other things. He's
awfully mean, Baldwin is--his father's a Jew or something--and he
didn't half like it, but just as you said he wanted the watch no
end, and after all it's only three weeks to Christmas--so now
I've got the dog!' he ended breathlessly.

'Oh, Edward--I'm so very glad!' Lizzie said.

'What dog's this?' asked Romney.

'It's a terrier Baldwin's got, and his father doesn't want him
to keep it.'

'Your father won't want you to keep it either!' said
Romney.

'Oh, that's all right,' Edward said. 'I was with mother in
Bond Street and we saw a dog in a window and mother said I could
have it if we'd got money enough, but we hadn't.'

'How are you going to exercise it?' Romney asked.

'That's easy,' Edward said. 'I'll run it out in the morning
and Lizzie will have it in the afternoon and we'll both have it
at tea-time. That's enough for any dog!

'But Lizzie won't be here always,' Romney said.

'Perhaps she will,' said Edward with that calm command of fate
that was always to be especially his. 'You never know.'

'Where are you going?' Romney asked. 'Mother will be expecting
you back.'

'Mother's gone out to tea this afternoon,' Edward said. 'She
said this morning that Lady Congreve had a tea-party.'

'Oh, Lady Congreve!' said Romney.

'Yes, isn't she awful?' Edward remarked. 'When she sees me she
says: "And is this your little boy?" every time, although
she knows I am, and I'm not little anyway. I hate her!' he
ended cheerfully.

'And where are you going?' Romney asked.

They were at the beginning of Victoria Street. The sky that
stretched here, in a wide expanse, over the ivory-grey of
Parliament and Abbey, was flecked with colours above a triumph of
stone that has the snowy whiteness of seagull's wings. There
seems, at that moment, no height to which these towers might not
soar. The Square in its movement whirls the traffic round its
circle as a croupier turns his wheel, but the sky and the towers
invest the rhythmic movement with their own shining pallor. The
moment before the lights come out, before the sky darkens into
repose . . .

Romney looked up and, in that brief time, saw the sky gather
the coloured fragments of cloud, turn them into feathers of rose
that, in the cold still air, had the radiance of fire. It was one
of those moments in London's life when she chooses to forget her
business and give herself, for an instant, to the creation of
beauty. In another whisper it will be gone; seize it or not as
you please--but for that instant everything is in perfect accord.
The sky is pale as the buildings are pale, but it is a
translucent pallor as light placed behind crystal.

Romney was surprised. Edward was not at all the sweet
sentimental type of boy who bought flowers for his mother.

'She's had headaches every day lately,' Edward went on. 'Gosh!
I think that's awful, so Lizzie and I think some flowers might
cheer her up.'

They started down Victoria Street and Romney was surprised to
find that the expedition was an adventure. Edward talked without
ceasing and treated Romney as a sensible companion, which he had
never, in Romney's memory, done before. Also he appeared to
consider Lizzie an authority upon everything. Lizzie was quiet
but observant, and was clearly enjoying herself.

'Do you suppose,' said Edward, 'if you got on a bus and then
changed and got on another bus and changed and then
another bus you could go right round London for sixpence?'
Then, without waiting for an answer: 'Temple Minor's got a
brother who's an awful cheat. He gets on a bus and pays a penny
less than he should, and after a bit he changes his seat and the
conductor forgets where he's been sitting and thinks he's paid
the whole lot. I should think you could be sent to prison for a
thing like that. But Temple says his brother wouldn't care. He
says it would be an experience.'

Once and again, Romney noticed, Edward put out his hand and
protected Lizzie, who walked quietly forward as though she were
above the world, from running into someone. That was very
charming, Romney thought. They had also private jokes which
showed that their intimacy was now a deep one. Edward called
things by strange names that had, Romney thought, an Italian
origin, and, when Romney enquired, Edward nodded:

'Lizzie's teaching me Italian,' he said in his most off-hand
manner.

They came to a flower-shop and went inside. It was a blaze of
glory and the glory was chiefly chrysanthemum. Here Lizzie too
was glorified. Her coat with its cheap fur collar was shabby, her
hat was the wrong shape, but her eyes beamed, and Romney noticed
that she had beautiful hands; for she had taken off her gloves,
and her hands moved toward the flowers, touched them, withdrew,
seemed to draw the gold, crimson, amber into her own small
body.

Edward was severely practical.

'Those are a shilling a bloom,' a lady like a governess in one
of the best of England's families told him. And indeed these were
glorious, their shaggy petals whiter than the moon.

Some of the chrysanthemums, sturdily independent, were in
pots.

'She'd like that one, I think,' said Edward, pointing at a
plant that burnt like a sun on an autumn day.

'That's the one I like,' said Lizzie.

'How much is that one?'

'Five shillings,' said the governess.

'Will you lend me sixpence?' Edward asked. 'I'll pay you back
Saturday week if you can wait till then.'

The pot was wrapped up and they turned homewards. Edward
carried it almost sacrificially and Lizzie was as anxious as
he.

All was well; they were home again.

A very terrible scene followed. Fanny was in the hall and they
all were at once aware that here was tragedy.

'Where have you been, Edward?'

He placed the chrysanthemums carefully on the table.

'It's all right, mother. I've been--'

'It isn't all right,' she broke in. 'I've been in a dreadful
way. You should have been at home an hour ago.' She turned on
Romney. 'Romney, it's too bad of you letting the children stay
out like this. Couldn't you realize what I've been feeling? I
thought Edward was run over or stolen or--'

To Romney and Edward this scene appeared quite absurd. Lizzie
understood it perfectly. But they were aware, all three of them,
that Fanny was terrified, and her terror affected themselves. But
why? Romney was greatly annoyed.

'Mother, this is ridiculous. What could happen to
Edward? We only went for a little walk--'

'Ridiculous! I don't think that's very polite, Romney. You
don't care what you say these days--'

'Oh, damn!' He was furious. As though it were his
fault. 'It is ridiculous, mother,' he went on. 'I'm damned
if I'll be ranted at for nothing at all.'

He looked as though he hated her. Then he started upstairs,
the children following him.

The room where Matthew and his friends met was a very ordinary
one. The furniture was hideous; there was a bookcase, simple and
practical, but one of the growing kind. You add a shelf when you
have a pound to spare, and the books, imprisoned behind glass,
lament their fate. There were two cheap gate-legged tables, and
the chairs, the sofa and two armchairs quite clearly hated human
beings. There were two pictures, one an excellent copy of Manet's
barmaid, the other an exciting representation of a ship in a
stormy bright-green sea. The first had been presented by Matthew,
the second by Bob Orange.

But the room was alive; it was alive because the people in it
were comfortable. Two ladies, Miss Murdoch and Mrs. Bell, were
knitting. One lady, Mary McTavish, was sewing. Bob Orange sat
back in his chair, his legs stuck out, smoking. Sam Somerset sat
forward staring, absent-mindedly, at Mr. McTavish. Many others
were present. It was a very full meeting. There were Jack Henry,
a policeman; Miss Clare Romanes, a young woman, very
good-looking, once fashionable, now crazy about planting flowers
in waste places like the hero of Maurice Hewlett's story; Samuel
Cope, a grocer in Pimlico; Ramon Spender, a painter and an all-in
wrestler; John Prentice, a young Member of Parliament. Of course
Danny.

And more than these.

The differences between these human beings were so acute,
their personal histories so varied, that it was remarkable that
the room gave so strong an impression of harmony. But no one,
entering, would have supposed that religion had anything to do
with the gathering. There were no public confessions, no prayers
for guidance and, above all, no hysteria.

A large black kettle was singing on the hob, and Miss Romanes
had brought with her her Airedale, who lay at her feet fast
asleep.

Mary McTavish was reading to the company. She had a beautiful
voice, soft, gentle, distinct, with every word clear as a silver
coin:

'Set not much by this--who is against thee or with thee, but
so do and care that God is with thee.

'In every thing that thou doest have a good conscience and God
shall defend thee: for him that God will help no man's
overthwartness shall be able to annoy.

'If thou canst be still and suffer thou shalt see without any
doubt the help of our Lord: he knoweth the time and manner of
helping thee, and therefore thou oughtest to reserve thyself for
him.

'To God it belongeth to help and deliver from all
confusion.

'If it seemeth to thee that thou knowest many things and art
understanding enough, yet there are many more things that thou
knowest not.

'Think not highly of thyself but rather acknowledge thine
ignorance.

'Thou comest to serve and not to govern: know well that thou
art called to suffer and to labour and not to be idle and tell
tales.

'He hath great tranquillity of heart that setteth nothing by
praisings or blamings.

'Thou art not the holier though thou be praised nor the more
vile though thou be blamed or dispraised. What thou art, that
thou art; that God knoweth thee to be and thou canst be said to
be no greater. . . .'

'What's that out of, Mary?' Somerset asked.

'It's Thomas à Kempis's Imitation of Christ.
This is an anthology.' She held the book up. She turned the pages
and began to read something quite different:

'O'er the broad nest her silver wings
Shook down their wasteful glitterings;
Her brindled neck high-arched in air
Like a small rainbow faded there;
But brighter glowed her plumy crown
Mouldering to golden ashes down;
With fume of sweet woods, to the skies,
Pure as a Saint's adoring sighs,
Warm as a prayer in Paradise,
Her life-breath rose in sacrifice!
The while with shrill triumphant tone
Sounding aloud, aloft, alone,
Ceaseless her joyful deathwail she
Sang to departing Araby.
Deep melancholy wonder drew
Tears from my heartspring at that view.
Like cresset shedding its last flare
Upon some wistful mariner,
The Bird, fast-blending with the sky,
Turned on me her dead-gazing eye
Once--and as surge to shallow spray
Sank down to vapoury dust away!'

After Mary's voice ceased there was silence. Then Jack Henry,
the policeman, said: 'They're very pretty words, but I'm blowed
if I understand what it's all about.'

McTavish began to explain to him concerning the Phoenix, but
Henry wasn't interested: 'I'm a townsman myself,' he said. 'First
Shoreditch, then Elephant and Castle, now Albany Street. I've
never known nothing about birds except it seems to me it's a
damned shame to keep them in cages.' He went on, however, to the
thing that interested him, which was that God had seemed to him
lately like a balloon, a large balloon full of fire and moving in
the sky. This, of course, would appear quite crazy to everyone
except his friends here in this room, and that was why he
mentioned it now. When he was on night duty, walking up and down
dark and solitary streets, this notion of the fiery balloon was
somehow a very cheering thing. He didn't, of course, mean that
there was a balloon there, but still a kind of brightness
moved where he moved. . . . He had a friend in the
Salvation Army who said this was nonsense. It wasn't a matter of
fire in the sky but of salvation. Was Jack Henry saved? Now by
what Miss McTavish read just now, one wasn't to think oneself
better than one's fellows, but if you were saved and the man next
door wasn't, then you did think yourself better than your
fellows. . . .

Tea followed.

Matthew, this evening, was sitting a little apart. This was
not his usual way, for he was extremely popular and was
innocently pleased that they liked him. Moreover he knew the
personal histories of everyone here and, at these meetings, there
were many new chapters to be added.

But to-day he was very unhappy and sat apart. A dreadful thing
had come to him. He hated his brother. Hatred comes always like a
cloud slipping low down over the mountains, covering everything
with a wet mist, cold and drenching. Malevolence strangles, and
now Matthew was, for the first time, malevolent. He wished every
possible ill to his brother, and so God was excluded. The words
of à Kempis seemed to him to-day to be platitudinous
nonsense and 'Nepenthe' nothing but florid affectation. He was
blinded from his friends and knew, to his horror, that he
was seeing them as Nicholas would see them. For the first time he
regarded Jack Henry with actual dislike. As though policemen
could possibly think of God as a balloon! This was a pose that
Henry had acquired in order to be more interesting to these
friends of his!

'A bit priggish, aren't they all?' he could hear Nicholas
whispering in his ear--and so perhaps they were. This business of
intimacy with God put you above your fellows and at once there
crept in superiority, self-conscious virtue, pomposity. And yet
hitherto he had not thought these people pompous or priggish or
self-conscious. He had often wondered at their simplicity, at the
naturalness with which they all, so different in taste,
education, training, met time after time, and were happy. That
was enough, he had thought, of itself to prove that the world to
which they belonged had some special properties of beauty and
understanding and kindliness. But to-night he saw the elegant
figure of Nicholas moving among them all. They were gathered
about the table, drinking tea and eating cake and bread and
butter. He could see now that they felt that they belonged to a
moving, growing organization. From the person of each one
stretched a chain of other persons. The family was spreading into
Europe, and yet, very marvellously, it was still not an
organization, had no rules, no documents, no finances save the
very simplest. He watched Danny with feelings of almost
passionate envy. Here was a very simple old man. Could he
hate his brother? Matthew knew that if such a plague came to him
he would cut off his right hand rather than continue under it.
But that was because Danny was so very simple. He would
not be able even to conceive of the complicated emotions, fears,
distresses that now inhabited the Westminster house.

If Nicholas met Danny he would like him, but would consider
him as of a different order. 'Religion is for such a man,' he
would say, as you might say, 'Dog-biscuits are good for a puppy.'
Then Matthew forgot his present company and became involved in
Nicholas as though Nicholas had wrapped him round with a cloak.
He thought all day of Nicholas, of how he could force him out of
the house, of how he could confront him and insult him so that he
would be compelled to go. He had done what he could and he had
utterly failed. He felt himself so weak and useless that all his
confidence in God was a mockery. Easy enough to say that you
believed in God when everything was comfortable and easy, but now
at the first real test God could do nothing for him, nothing at
all. God did not then, after all, exist? All this sense of
contact was a sham, a self-hallucination, as so many clever
people said that it was. What a mockery was this gathering in
this room, and he had the temptation to shout out: 'Listen, all
of you! I who am responsible for your being here tell you that
this is hallucination. There is no God, no law of love;
the struggle towards nobility is a sham. We are fleas hopping on
a dying cinder, jumping to annihilation!'

But more definite and actual than any speculation was his
hatred of Nicholas. It appeared to him now that his hatred had
threaded his whole life. Nicholas, as a baby, stealing his
bricks, Nicholas taunting him because there was a cow in the
field, Nicholas mocking him at a party, Nicholas twisting his arm
in the barn across the road . . . and yet, for years and years,
he had been free of Nicholas, had not thought of him!

Old McTavish with his huge spectacles and cadaverous face came
over to him, carrying two cups of tea.

'Here, Matthew, take a cup.'

Matthew took it.

'I'm going to be married,' McTavish said.

Matthew congratulated him.

'Aye. She's a very decent body, with two children of her own.
She'll be coming with me here in a week or two. She's that timid
she's afeard of her own shadow, so this will do her a power of
good.'

Then he said, laying a bony hand on a bony knee:

'You're out of sorts to-night, Matthew.'

Matthew nodded.

'Maybe thinking this a lot of humbug.'

'No,' said Matthew. 'Not this. But myself.'

'Aye,' said McTavish, pouring his tea into his saucer and
breathing on it. 'I'm that way myself at times. But it passes.
Maybe it's the liver.'

But in a little while Matthew slipped out. He could not endure
it any longer. It was a dark winter night. The clouds rushed
overhead and the traffic roared on every side of him. The whole
earth seemed to heave at his feet, and around him all faces were
white, windows were darkened with secrecy, the picture-houses
flamed.

In the stillness of Westminster, under the driving sky, ghosts
walked, ceaselessly passing and repassing without sound upon
layers of sodden leaves.

Nicholas sold the gold snuff-box four days before Christmas.
It was characteristic of him that he should sell it when he had
no real need to do so. Just then--because of lucky cards, because
of loans from Romney and Grace--he was not penniless. But it was
characteristic of him also that he sold it to give everyone
presents at Christmas. Christmas, anyone might be surprised to
hear, was one of Nicholas' festivals. A pagan festival of course.
The myth that created it was so ancient that its origins were
hidden among the stars. But it was, he always thought, a pretty
story with its contrasted kings and shepherds, gold and
frankincense, dung and straw, cattle and angels, its starshine,
its hilly freshness, its pretty baby fantasy.

But he liked Christmas. He liked the air of licence, of
kiss-and-never-mind; he liked the present-giving and receiving
which the young considered such a bore. He liked his own
popularity, for he was never more successful than when he was
organizing games and acting, quite easily, the part of a
character out of Dickens.

For the rest he was content. He was, perhaps, more fully
involved with Mrs. Agar than he wished. He had helped her in a
little plan or two--oh, nothing criminal, only his social company
when someone or other needed reassuring! And to Abel he was
thoroughly accustomed. He never conceived now of bidding him be
off. He found him, indeed, rather useful, saw him every day, and
gave him money every once and again.

Of the house itself he was now Commander--and it was this
especially that determined him to have a very happy Christmas,
and to make everyone round him happy. Having disturbed them a
little, his cleverness (oh! how he enjoyed his cleverness!) would
now be directed to cheering them up. He really liked them all
extremely save only Fanny and Matthew. Against these two he had
what must be ancient, slumbering grudges. Grace was too foolish,
poor thing, to stir him to anything but kindly contempt. Fanny he
frankly detested, and one day he would tell her so. There was a
certain pride and obstinacy in Fanny which exasperated him. In
her heart she thought herself as good as he, nay, better. Well,
he would show her . . .

He was indeed already showing her, for he knew that she had
given Charles the letter. The two were very quiet. To the
ignorant they gave no sign, but Nicholas knew.

As for Matthew he would deal with him faithfully also. The sly
priggish preacher with God in his pocket!

And Nicholas was especially irritated with these two because
they made him feel malevolent. He did not wish to feel
malevolent. He enjoyed the world and everyone in it so long as he
had some money in his pocket, pretty women not too far away, a
stomach in good working order, Lizzie contented, and one or two
beautiful things to look at and handle.

It was a shame to sell the snuff-box, only because it was
beautiful, not at all because it wasn't his. It was in fact his
quite as much as anyone's. He could remember it in the old
drawing-room at home. Even as a baby he had wanted to handle it.
If Fanny asked for it what would he say? He would say that he had
replaced it and they would blame a servant. And as to its beauty
he did not now mind so greatly, for he had the little carved
negress to look at--the negress that, he was determined, should
never again leave him. If Romney demanded it he would pay him for
it. He would borrow the money from Grace, who would now do
anything for him. The thought of that amused him.

So, in the best of tempers, he went out after an early tea to
sell the snuff-box. It was after five, but the shops remained
open late in Christmas week. Christmas was in the air. There was
a sense of pleasant hurry, the stars were coming out in the sky,
and, imaginatively, he could sniff the cold purity of mistletoe,
the odour of baked meats, the thick consistency of raisins, sugar
and flour. He dropped down from Piccadilly into the quiet
bachelor security of Duke Street.

Here he saw the very shop that he required. Over the dark-blue
doorway there was printed in big gold letters the one name:
ZANTI. The window contained only one or two things--a Limoges
panel of the Nativity, rich in deepest blues and crimsons, a
carved ivory box with huntsmen and dogs and a wild ferocious
boar, a necklace of crystal beads and a jade cup. These were
arranged on a platform of grey velvet. They were exquisitely
lit.

He went in. A pale young man behind a table bowed.

Nicholas produced the snuff-box.

'Can you give me any idea,' he said, 'what this is worth? I
should like to sell it.'

The young man took the snuff-box and examined it carefully.
Nicholas looked about him. There was only one glass case in the
room and this contained only a few things, but Nicholas could see
that they were of superb quality. A miniature especially
attracted him--a young girl in eighteenth-century dress. It was
framed in pearls and diamonds. The dress was the palest
rose-pink, her hair was powdered, and she had a young eager
smiling countenance. Oh! but he would like to possess that
miniature! He must have it in his hands.

'May I look at that miniature a moment?'

The young man, eyeing him very carefully, opened the case and
gave him the miniature.

As his hand closed about the exquisite thing his heart began
to beat thickly. His hands trembled. He could have put it to his
lips and kissed it. And he had an almost irresistible impulse to
slip it into his pocket. That way madness lay. So, with a
charming smile, but feeling as though rough fingers had taken his
heart and pinched it, he returned it to the young man.

'How lovely!' he said.

'Yes. If you will excuse me,' said the young man, 'I will ask
Mr. Zanti . . .' He pressed a little bell with his thumb. A door
opened and there came in quite the fattest man that Nicholas had
ever seen in his life (and he had known some fat men in his
time!).

Mr. Zanti must be old and yet his hair was still jet-black and
fitted, like a skull-cap, his ancient, yellow, many-chinned
countenance. From the landscape of this large face his black eyes
sparkled as though two holes had been made in a map and a young
child peeped through. His body was short and immensely broad. His
vast stomach spread like a bolster. And yet he was not unpleasant
to behold, Nicholas thought, for he was most beautifully clean,
like an ivory statue yellow with age. He had small fingers,
slender for so stout a man. He wore a neat black suit. He was
alert and alive.

'And what can I do for you, sir?' he asked.

Nicholas told him. He took the box and examined it, at first
with indifference. He was suddenly excited.

'Excuse me. Please, sir, will you come with me inside?' He
opened the door at the back of the shop and Nicholas followed him
into an untidy and messy little room. There was a table piled
high with scattered papers. On a rather faded wallpaper there was
only one illumination--a faded yellow photograph of Penzance.
There was an old armchair with a hole in it. Mr. Zanti sat down
at the table and examined the box with a large glass. His black
eyes jumped at Nicholas' face.

'Excuse me, sir, this is a very valuable box.'

'Indeed?' said Nicholas.

'You did not know? Ah, well. It is the work of Pietro
Taquisance, an Italian artist of the early eighteenth century. He
was a very wicked man and a very fine artist. We know zomezing
about his wickedness, very little about his art.'

'What did he do?' asked Nicholas, who was interested in
wickedness.

'He tortured old women to get their money, he poisoned his
zister--and he had all ze vices. But there are not many examples
of his work. I have not had one in my hands for a long time. I
will give you two hundred pound,' he said suddenly. 'Pardon me,'
he added. 'You cannot tell me the history of this box?'

'No,' said Nicholas, who was greatly excited at the unexpected
nature of this news, 'I'm afraid I can't. It has been in my
possession ever since I can remember. My mother had it. I played
with it as a baby.'

He was trying to collect himself. Two hundred pounds! Neither
Fanny nor Charles had the slightest idea of the value of it. Had
he any right . . .? Oh, nonsense! He needed the money very much
more than they did.

'I will give you a cheque--now,' said Zanti. He added: 'It is
a pity for you to sell it--is it necessary?'

'Very necessary,' said Nicholas, laughing.

'Excuse me,' Zanti said. 'Perhaps you regard this as an
impertinence in me. But I have lived too long to care much for
impertinence. But--it may be--your selling this--zomezing you
will always regret. We do zomezing without thinking--and our
whole life changes. This might be for you the wrong action which
you will always regret.'

What an extraordinary old man! But Nicholas liked him. They
were brothers, for in both of them was this same passion--a love
of beautiful things.

'I never regret any past action,' Nicholas said. 'I think I
care for beautiful things as much as you do. In your shop there
is a miniature--the loveliest thing I have ever seen. I would do
anything to possess it. I would steal it if necessary. But then,
on the other hand, one must live--to enjoy these things. And so,
I'm afraid, I shall have to take your cheque.'

'What wonderful things you have! How I envy you living with
such things. It is just the life I should have chosen for
myself.'

'Yes?' The old man smiled. 'Once, hundreds of years ago, I had
a little bookshop. Before that I was in Cornwall. Also in Spain.
I look old really, but I am not so old. I fought in the War for
my country--Italy.'

'You fought in the War?' Nicholas asked incredulously.

'Oh yes. At the last they took anyone who would go. I was
known as old Papa Zanti!' Then he bowed. 'Good afternoon,
sir.'

Two hundred pounds! What luck! What wonderful amazing luck! On
his way home he passed a sweet-shop, and against its windows
three small children, two boys and a girl, pressed their noses.
He took them inside and bought for them as many sweets as they
could carry. He enjoyed hugely this pleasure.

On this same afternoon from another side of the house a new
perception of life came to a member of the family. Nell moved
forward.

She was on her knees in the dining-room looking in the lowest
shelf of the bookcase for Samuel Butler's Notebooks.
Romney had told her it was there. But, no. Here are the
forgotten, disregarded shepherds and shepherdesses of the
Arcadian age. She made a little pile on the floor beside her.
Scenes and Characters, Charlotte Mary Yonge; Red as a
Rose is She, Rhoda Broughton; Festus, A Summer in Skye,
Dreamthorp, Keynotes, and, last but surely not least, The
Heavenly Twins.

She was in a sentimental mood perhaps, for Hector last
afternoon had shown her (she said to herself) his very heart in
the centre of the London Museum. So she looked at the little pile
with tenderness. Once they had made people happy, once they had
seemed fresh and wonderful and even (dear Rhoda!) bold. They
would now, possibly, never make people happy again. Going, going,
gone. . . . And yet who could tell? Would not some wise 1980
young man put on his spectacles, fly in his midget aeroplane to
Miss Broughton's birthplace perhaps? Would not Nancy and
Cometh Up as a Flower seem then the oddest, quaintest,
most beautiful witnesses to kind hearts seeking for coronets?
Squatting there and feeling that Charlotte Mary and Rhoda
together had said 'Boo!' to Samuel Butler, so that she no longer
wanted to find him, she realized that her mother was at her
side.

'What are you doing, darling? We must turn those old
books out. I've been meaning to for ages.' Then Fanny said, with
that rather shy eagerness that was her own property: 'Nell, are
you busy? I thought--why shouldn't we go to the Pictures?'

Nell jumped up.

'Yes, darling,' she said, brushing her dress. 'It would be
lovely. What a good idea!'

She knew well her mother's capacity for finding happiness in
very little things and it pleased her greatly now to see that
Fanny had some of her once-on-a-time happiness in her eyes; she
was almost like her old self, her tall beautiful body strung up
with a kind of eager tenseness.

'I'll go and put my hat on,' Fanny said in a half-whisper.

Nell, waiting for her in the hall, thought: 'I wonder whether
she will tell me anything--I wonder whether that's why she has
asked me.'

The house's silence struck her now as it so often lately had
done. It was not only the consciousness of her own secret that
oppressed her but a growing awareness of the nerves and
unhappiness and apprehension attacking them all. It was, in part,
surely Granny's illness that was making this Christmas different
from any other. Uncle Nicholas was the only one of them who was
enjoying it. He alone was full of plans and little plotting
surprises. Her anticipation of some unhappy event that would
concern them all swallowed up, just then, her consciousness of
her own problems. They were bad enough! With every day she
seemed to be pushed into worse deceit and more furtive manoeuvre.
But, as she waited, her whole mind was on her mother. How could
she help her, how discover what it was that had changed her
so?

Looking up, she saw Becky Sharp descending the stairs. With
slow sleeky deliberation, a secrecy that removed her from all
outside contact, the cat came from soft step to soft step. She
gave Nell one glance out of her large green eyes, then
disappeared along the passage.

Fanny came hurriedly and a little confused as she always
did.

'Now, dear, what are we going to?'

'I've no idea what there is. I haven't been to the Pictures
for ages.' (No, because Lottie might be there.)

'Well, there's one at the Cosmopolitan called Wives and
Husbands. I thought that sounded interesting.'

When they were in the taxi, Nell said:

'Isn't it funny? Becky Sharp's always in Granny's room
now.'

'Oh dear, I hope she doesn't mind!'

'No, I think she likes it,' said Nell. 'But it's only
lately--the last week. She's there all the time.'

Fanny took Nell's hand into hers.

'This is nice. I must say I like the Pictures, but I
haven't been for a long time. Every afternoon's engaged, although
I'm sure I don't know what with. I remember when I was a little
girl we used to go to magic-lantern shows. They were
wonderful. I often think it doesn't matter what the thing
is so long as you enjoy it. What I mean is that of course
everything is so developed now, but we enjoyed that
magic-lantern in the village schoolroom just as much.'

She held Nell's hand very tightly, and said:

'Dear, I went and paid Janet a visit yesterday.'

'Oh no--did you! How was she?'

'I had to take her something for Christmas. It wouldn't have
seemed right if I hadn't. It was lovely seeing her again.
We both enjoyed it so.'

'What did you talk about?' Nell asked.

'Oh--' Then Fanny stopped. 'You know--old times. Anything.
Janet had a grand tea for me, and of course I didn't want to eat
it, which she very well knew. She took a grim pleasure,' Fanny
went on. 'Janet is more to me than anyone except all of you of
course.'

'She shouldn't have left you,' Nell said quickly.

'She hasn't left me. She's only waiting until--'

'Until what?'

'Oh, well, you know that she didn't get on with Nicholas.
She's only waiting until he goes.'

Nell laughed. 'I don't think he'll ever go! He's with us for
evermore. He's amusing, isn't he, mother? But, all the same, it's
nicer by ourselves.' She was then on the very edge of telling
Fanny everything. The thought of her uncle restrained her.
What a silly thing for her to do, he would say! But in any
case, Fanny gave her something else to think about.

'He is going--almost at once--after Christmas!'

'He's going!' Nell cried. 'Why, wherever to?'

'I don't know,' Fanny said. 'But he's going.'

Her voice was low, vibrating, full of suppressed emotion. 'It
isn't right for a man to stay idly like that doing nothing. And I
don't think his influence on you children is good. Romney is
quite changed and will hardly speak to me. Lizzie dominates
Edward. Your father--But here we are! Yes, there it is--Wives
and Husbands. Norma Shearer and Clark Gable. Do you know
them, darling?'

They sprang out. Fanny paid the man, giving him sixpence as a
tip, simply because she was so thoroughly determined to enjoy
herself and he was an old man with a grey bulbous nose and his
neck was wrapped in a very dirty woollen muffler. He seemed
grateful for the tip, and she said to Nell as they went in: 'I
never can understand why they say taximen are so rude. They're
charming.' Because she was herself so very unhappy she was
beating everything up to its highest, forcing herself into
excited enjoyment that like an illuminated turnip-lantern was
hollow inside.

They had the very best places in the front of the dress-circle
and, seating themselves, were caught up into a crowd of
footballers, thousands strong, and cheering madly; a succession
of motor-bicycles charging wildly round corners; and Mr. Runciman
standing behind a table and a glass of water, explaining
something very carefully. They were hemmed in with violent
noises, cracks and roars and shouts and yells--and yet a lady
behind them eating chocolates was the loudest of them all.

Then the news of the world passed as it always must into
limbo, and a vast organ, decorated in the very worst of taste,
rose from the bowels of the earth; a pale thin young man, bound
to the organ like a victim in a heathen sacrifice, bowed to them
all and offered them in frantic succession M. Gounod, M. Bizet
and M. Saint-Saëns. Then, quite rightly, he was swallowed up
into the earth again.

There followed a farce in which a fat man called Hardy argued
with a thin man called Laurel. But in spite of their arguments
they were friends. Their friendliness pervaded the vast building.
They fell downstairs together, ate custard together and were both
of them abused by a large fat woman. They were friends in spite
of everything. And so to Wives and Husbands.

Nell, in spite of her modern sophistication, in spite of the
fact that the most intimate of domestic crises were developed in
halls as vast as Eblis, was caught into the drama. For here were
two wives and two husbands. One wife was elegant (Norma
Shearer--oh, how elegant!) and one wife was shabby (a little
mouse of a thing). One husband was handsome and slim and fiercely
charming (Clark Gable), and one husband was clumsy and
ill-dressed. Norma Shearer was the wife of the clumsy one, Clark
Gable the husband of the little mouse. So of course things went
wrong.

Oh, what a smart party Norma Shearer gave! There were
thousands of guests all in evening dress that was too good to be
true. They threw balloons at one another and shrieked and drank
champagne standing on tables. But in spite of this and in spite
of a butler who bowed every time he saw anyone, things went
wrong. The clumsy man found a letter in his wife's bureau and
Clark Gable took a lady to a restaurant where, by a very odd
coincidence, the little mouse happened to be dining all alone.
Will it come right? Oh, will it come right? Surely they will not
be so foolish as to allow true love to be strangled? Surely,
surely . . .

It was then that Nell, absorbed in the story, felt something
warm on the back of her hand. Her mother was crying. There was no
sound, no movement. The touch of that tear on her hand moved Nell
quite desperately. Once again she felt the impotence, the
unresourcefulness of her youth. Her mother was easily moved. It
might be the drama of the story. But she knew that it was more
than this.

She put her arm around her mother's waist. They sat closely
together, side pressed against side, while the strange American
voices came to them out of space, and that other story, now for
both of them altogether unreal, moved to its conclusion.

Two days before Christmas and London was plunged into an
ecstasy of present-buying. 'This is surely the worst kind of
hypocrisy,' said the young men and women to one another.
'Everyone knows that Christmas has its origin in the wild
orgiastic sacrifices of the Neanderthal man. With our cards, our
holly and our carols we are now celebrating the savage bestiality
of the Stone Age.'

Behind Nicholas at the Sunday performance of the private Film
Society one young man said to another young man:

'Isn't it awful--this Christmas idea?'

And the other young man said:

'Simply too ghastly.'

Everyone everywhere protested that this present-giving was a
farce and an imposition, that they would never give presents
again, that they would not give presents now were it not
that presents would be given to them, and that it was
nothing else but sinful in these days when no one had any money
at all and there were all these unemployed. . . .

Nevertheless the sun shone, London was happy, the streets were
packed with excited purchasers, along Holborn the hawkers covered
the pavements with little toy policemen and black dogs with
scarlet coats and green men running up sticks and balloons of
every shining splendour; in Gamage's little boys breathed deeply
and watched Father Christmas, and the jewellers in Bond Street
sold diamonds to young men who were gallantly overdrawn at the
bank.

It would be a sad exaggeration, of course, to say that
Piccadilly blossomed into Christmas trees, but Fanny, who had a
child's imagination and walked in Edward's company down the
Circus to Hyde Park Corner, had only to shut her eyes and she saw
a forest of lovely trees, blazing with lights, while along the
broad avenue, carpeted with fir-cones, the feet of the reindeer
softly padded and the sleigh-bells rang out on the cold frosty
air. (In fact the sun shone and it was warm.)

Edward too, at her side, was very happy, for now he had his
dog (exchanged for the watch and named Crusoe). He faithfully
hoped, moreover, that on Christmas morning a new watch would lie
ticking beside his Christmas sausage and bacon. It would not be
his fault if it did not. . . .

Do not imagine, however, that Edward, at this happy Christmas
time, was like a little boy in one of Mr. Mullinger's pretty
stories. As he walked beside his mother he was one of the
plainest and most matter-of-fact small boys in London.

As history goes, this day was as important to every member of
the Carlisle family as 1066 was to the Conqueror. History was
made on this day.

In the first place, before evening Romney and Nicholas
suffered two extremely important encounters. Both were
fortuitous.

Romney's was in this wise:

Romney was in the depths. Christmas meant nothing to him save
that it was an impertinent jest at the expense of his own
feelings. He had developed, in the course of these weeks, a
concentration on his own weaknesses which would have delighted
any psychoanalyst, and provided him with at least two years'
earnest and responsible employment. And with this self-contempt
went hostility towards all the outside world and especially his
own family. It was as though his spiritual skin were raw and
first one and then another tortured him by touching it.
Especially his mother, who seemed to him to blunder with every
word. There wasn't one of them he could endure save only Uncle
Nicholas. And with all this he was lonely as he had never been
before, longing for affection and repulsing it, seeing himself
whom every man must despise and despising them himself in return.
In addition to all this, business was bad. Partly because of his
own enthusiasm they had opened, three weeks before, an exhibition
of the paintings of a young Spaniard, Señor Cervantes.
Señor Cervantes was, in spite of his name, no success. His
pictures were charming when you could understand them. They were
Apocalyptical and connected, in a dark misty way, with the Last
Judgment. Not a single one was sold. People did not want the Last
Judgment at Christmas time.

So, on every side of him, darkness. His only light was his
uncle, who appeared to him now as a genius of wit, intelligence
and scornful opinions delivered in the kindest, jolliest way.

And with his admiration there was fear. He did not dare to ask
him for the return of the negress; he slipped, unobserved,
sometimes into his uncle's room to take a look at it.

And then he had this encounter. On this afternoon, two days
before Christmas, he made his way into the English Book Club.
There was a new book about Dostoeffsky. That ferocious Russian
genius would make him, he felt, good company during this
intolerable Christmas season.

He climbed the stairs and found himself struggling in a sea of
women. It seemed that all the ladies of London were changing
their books, stout ladies, thin ladies, young ladies, old ladies,
all wanting works of fiction. A kind of disgust filmed his gaze
as he perceived these rows and rows of novels, all so alike, all,
he was convinced, so unnecessary, and these ladies, fire in their
eyes, their hands curved to clutch, crying names of authors,
titles of books, as though this were the last hour of all the
fiction in the world.

'Give me,' he imagined a stout lady, her elbow in his
waistcoat, crying, 'The Forsyte Saga or I die!' 'No, no,'
a tall thin one with a hat like a sea-shell was screaming surely.
'The Forsytes for me! A moi the Forsytes.'

He moved disgustedly forward and, propelled from behind,
almost fell over a young lady at a desk. The young lady was in
black; she looked very, very weary.

She found his card, slipped her way through the struggling
mass, and with miraculous swiftness returned, the book in her
hand.

They were in a corner of the room and it happened that, just
then, the tide ebbed, the sea's murmur beat against other rocks.
There was a sudden quiet peace.

She gave him the book with a weary smile. He smiled in return,
the first time, he was sure, that he had smiled for weeks.

'This is pretty awful,' he said.

'Yes, it is,' she answered sharply. 'And I'm sick of it.'

He glanced at her and saw that she looked about seventeen, so
young in fact that she had no right to be there. In her black
dress, her face pale with fatigue, she touched his sympathy.

'You look pretty tired.'

'So'd you be,' she said, looking not at him but at the card
index. 'I never want to see a book again. I lie awake sometimes
thinking how wicked it is that there are people all over
the country writing new books. They ought to be gaoled.'
Then, suddenly staring up at him, she added: 'The sad part of it
is that I took this job because I loved books. Now I hate
them.'

She was certainly not pretty. Her nose was too short, her
cheeks too thin, her hair was not as tidy as it should be.

'If only they'd know what they want. They never know.
They don't seem to care. Some of them change their novels every
day. But it's the novelists ought to be ashamed. They come in
here sometimes just to see how their books are getting on, and
don't I long just to tell them what I think!'

'Why don't you?' asked Romney.

'It wouldn't do. Novelists are the most touchy creatures. They
go sniffing along the shelves under their initial, pretending
they're looking for something. But I oughtn't to be talking to
you like this.'

'It doesn't matter,' said Romney. 'They're fading away.'

'Yes,' said the young woman. 'We'll be closing soon, thank
God.'

'Why do you do it,' asked Romney, 'if you hate it so
much?'

'One must do something. I haven't a bean. I'm a poor little
orphan. Oh dear!' She sighed. She smiled at him again.
'There--take your old Dostoeffsky and go.'

He felt a strange emotion in his age-weary heart that he had
never known before. It was almost as though he had found Harry
again.

'You aren't more fed up than I am,' he said.

'Why--what's the matter with you?'

'Oh, everything--things have been going wrong for ages.
Business, for instance.'

'What do you do?'

She was looking at him, he was aware, with considerable
interest.

'I help to run a picture gallery.'

Her eyes gleamed.

'I love pictures.'

'What kind of pictures?'

'I don't know. I haven't any idea. Sometimes I go to the Tate
with a friend. Do you know which picture I like best?'

'No,' he said.

'That one of Chatterton dead under the window. I think that's
lovely.'

He was disappointed but didn't say so. What he did say
was:

'Look here! Couldn't we meet again?'

She gave him a long straight look.

'Yes--if you like.'

'When?'

They settled a time and a place. Her name was Mary Benson.

Nicholas' encounter was also in the centre of a human
whirlpool. This time at Fortnum and Mason's. He had been taking
his Christmas presents very seriously. He thought that he would
buy foie gras for Grace, and it amused him to remember
that, had it not been for the gold snuff-box, he would probably
be buying it with Grace's own money.

He was in the highest spirits. The two hundred pounds had
altered everything, and now he thought that he would settle down
for the rest of his days with the family. Why not? He had them
all at heel. Many sources of income were opening out before him.
Mrs. Agar was an agreeable excitement, Abel just dangerous enough
to be amusing. Fanny and Matthew and Grace would be there for him
to tease. Charles was not a bad old sort and might be tempted
into one or two profitable little financial adventures. . . .

And--believe it or no, this was one of the strongest reasons
for his remaining--Lizzie was happy here, happy as she had never
been before in all her life. Yes: the Westminster house should be
his home for the rest of his days!

That being settled, he felt most kindly towards them all, yes,
even Fanny and Matthew. He enjoyed the Christmas-present buying
like a child. But, in Fortnum and Mason's, what a struggle! As a
rule it was the temple of calm. So efficient a place was it that
you might buy a tongue, a set of chessmen, a bathing-suit and a
pair of shoes all within ten minutes! Not so to-day! People
almost snatched jellies and hams out of one another's hands, and
Christmas hampers, their apples bursting and their plums
sweating, fought with one another for attention.

'Oh dear! Oh dear!' said a lady to Nicholas. 'Where is Lucy? I
have lost Lucy.' Her cry was as heartfelt as any poem by William
Wordsworth, and in her agitation she appealed to Nicholas as
though she had known him from his cradle.

He had, however, never seen her before. She was tall and
stout, with a round red face and soft appealing eyes. She was
dressed in admirable taste, and that he appreciated, for she had
so much to dress. He summed her up at once as stupid and kindly.
She had a galantine in one hand and a small gold pencil in the
other.

'I beg your pardon--' he said.

She looked at him with almost frantic despair. She did not
care whether she knew him or no. All she wanted was
assistance.

'It's my little girl. I said to her not to move, but she can't
resist the sight of so much food. She's wandered away twice
already. Edward said that it was mad to take her, but Miss Spence
had to do the invitations. It was this morning or never. . . .'
She realized that he was a stranger. 'I beg your pardon. This is
perfectly dreadful.'

'Not at all,' said Nicholas, smiling. 'If perhaps you could
describe her to me--'

'She's wearing a red hat and has an orange in one hand--'

At once he departed, edged his way through the mob, and soon
discovered a fat little girl in a red hat and holding an orange,
her eyes fixed, in a sort of trance, on glistening piles of
candied fruit.

'Excuse me,' he said sharply (he did not care for little
girls). 'Your mother wants you.'

With a sigh, as a lover is torn from his mistress, the little
girl turned away. She went with Nicholas as though she too had
known him all his life.

'Extraordinary thing,' Nicholas thought. 'I must have met this
family before somewhere.'

The stout lady, who had now resigned the galantine to a
pushing assistant, clutched her daughter.

'Thank you so much,' smiling sweetly, helplessly. 'It's too
good of you--'

'Not at all,' said Nicholas.

'It's fearful, isn't it, at Christmas time? Why does one leave
everything to the last? No, dear, you can't have any ginger.
She's crazy about ginger, which I can't abide myself. But what
was I to do? I promised Helen Vincent in Mentone that she should
have a galantine, and of course it's too late now, but it'll do
for the New Year--'

'Do you mean,' said Nicholas, 'the Vincents of Raquillant? I
was staying with them last winter.'

'No!' cried the lady. 'Were you really? Helen and Bob and
Martine--but that's too extraordinary. How small the world
is!'

Smiles broke out all over her round face. Nicholas realized
that she was one of those women to whom all the minutiae of life
were of thrilling importance.

'Isn't it?' said Nicholas. 'I had a delightful week there with
my little girl. They had just completed the new bathing-pool with
the green tiles--'

'Why, isn't that too extraordinary! Do tell me your
name.'

'My name is Nicholas Coventry.'

'Of course! Of course! They've often talked of you! Helen says
you're the best bridge--'

She stopped. The assistant was asking her address. She gave
it. She continued to stare at Nicholas in a kind of dream.

'Do come and see me one day.' A most elaborate and confused
business in a bag followed. 'Four Clarence Gate. And that's the
country address--near Hereford. Perhaps you would come and play
bridge one evening? I'm writing to Helen to-day. She'll be so
very interested. . . .'

'You never know,' thought Nicholas, putting the card carefully
away in his pocket-book. And, as he went out into Piccadilly, he
added, 'How very strange the English are! So cautious and then,
once you know someone they know, so incautious! . . .'

And now, while Fanny was thinking of reindeer, Romney
borrowing Dostoeffsky from Mary Benson, Edward making
plans about Robinson Crusoe, Nicholas collecting a new promising
address, Nell and Hector were snatching a swift, almost
desperate, meeting under the bare skeleton branches of the Green
Park trees. They had but a moment. Hector had promised Lottie. .
. . Nell had promised Aunt Grace. . . . So always now were their
meetings. Every day the situation was worse. Hector was out of a
job now. Lottie was very strange. Nell detested, more and more,
the furtive deceit. And so, like shadows thrown by the flickering
sunlight on to that screen of bare brown trees, grey walls, pale
winter sky, these two met, clasped hands, and fled again. For
Nell it was maddening because, hurrying along Piccadilly (they
were to have just a quarter of an hour together), whom should she
encounter but stupid, great, gawky, drawling-voiced Iris Tarbell,
who, dragging her dress about her as though she were a child in
family theatricals, detained Nell most painfully, there right in
front of the flower-shop where they sell you one carnation for a
shilling.

'Oh, darling, how are you? Isn't Christmas too
perfectly frightful, and I've just been to such a ghastly
luncheon! Honor Lighter's, to meet a Chinese poet. And there he
was, my dear, four foot high and frightfully polite. He
looks about eight years old, but he has ten children in China.
And you know how stupid Honor is. He said he'd had a letter from
his daughter that very morning, and Honor said "Written in
Chinese, I suppose?" What on earth did she think it would
be written in? Where are you going, darling? You look perfectly
sweet.'

Nell, in an agony, watched a clock above her head race the
seconds. At last she flung free of Iris, who stood lost in
Piccadilly and surely growing, with every moment, taller as Alice
did after eating the cake.

'Oh, darling, I'm so sorry--and we have such a little
time!' They kissed there where they were in the Green Park and
didn't care who saw them. They sat down on two little chairs
close together. 'I would have been here five minutes earlier, but
whom should I meet but Iris Tarbell? You don't know her. . . .'
She held his hand. They looked at one another as though it were
months since they had last met. There is no question but that
difficulty and frustration are fine for passion.

'Darling, I've finished my poem. Last night. I did the bit
about the Trumpets and all the angels rising like petals blown in
the wind. You remember--God is watching from a great height and
He sees the earth open like a pomegranate. The Trumpets cease and
He speaks. His voice is very quiet and still. . . .'

'Well, I don't know. Lottie's got something up her sleeve. I
can't get a job. It's all pretty beastly.' Then his face
lightened, he smiled. 'I've got your present. I do hope you'll
like it.'

He gave her a very small parcel and when she opened it there
was a very small box and inside the box a very small ring and in
the centre of the ring three very small pearls.

Nell was in ecstasy. 'Oh, Hector--but you shouldn't! How did
you afford it?'

'Never mind how I afforded it. Now, I'll put it on your
finger.' And so he did. It has been done so often, just like
this, that it need not be described.

'They'll see it. They'll ask me about it,' Nell said. 'But I
don't care. They can, and I'll just tell them. I'm sick of this
secrecy. I'm ashamed of it. I should have told mother long
ago if it hadn't been for Uncle Nicholas. He makes one
secret, I think. I don't know why. And now here's your
present!'

Her present was an old silver-gilt box engraved with figures
of shepherds and shepherdesses. Inside the lid it was stamped:
'Hector from Nell. Christmas 1932.'

He kissed her, and a very old man, wandering near them,
looking for cigarette-ends, gazed at them with rheumy eyes and,
for a moment, out of shadows and pains and a hungry stomach,
recovered his youth. He came towards them, murmuring. Hector gave
him a shilling.

'And what now?' asked Hector.

'Directly Christmas is over you are going to tell Lottie to
divorce you.'

'Yes--and then?'

'Then we shall be married.'

He looked at her, bent his head.

'Nell, I ought to tell you. I must tell you. You'd
better give me up. I'm a failure. I shall never be anything else.
This morning when I woke and thought about my poem I knew it. All
the time that I have been writing it I believed in it. While I
was working at it I thought that it was going to be wonderful. I
saw it as it ought to be. My conception of it was as good
as anybody's. Shakespeare and Dante and Milton weren't finer. But
now I know that it's nothing--tenth-rate, worthless. It
shrivelled away as soon as I wrote the last line. I'm no good.
You mustn't stick to me.'

She saw that his under-lip was trembling, that, perhaps, he
wasn't far from tears, and she loved him then as she had never
done before.

She felt strong enough and brave enough to storm the ramparts
of Heaven. But all she said was:

'We've only got five minutes, so don't let's waste them,
Hector darling. How funny men are! You give me a ring and then
tell me to leave you! How can you fail when I believe in
you as I do?'

'You do believe in me?'

'I wouldn't love you if I didn't believe in you.'

The sun was falling, lights were coming out. They heard Big
Ben, through the wintry air, strike the hour. They walked into
Piccadilly and she climbed a bus, waving to him before she
disappeared.

She had grown in these last weeks. She was ready now for
anything and, feeling her ring beneath her glove, faced life as
though she were its only challenger. Nothing could defeat her.
She smiled brilliantly at the conductor as she gave him her
pennies.

The thin sunlight fell, now here, now there, about the house,
touching the carpets, the stairs, stroking the pictures,
flooding, in one last pale glory, the drawing-room walls, so that
the Bonington caught a new brightness of blue sky and brown
striped field. Then the light died. Over all the house there was
dusk. The drawing-room was scented with the close richness of
chrysanthemums; the holly, the berries like red buttons, clung in
green shadow to the pictures, and a thick bunch of mistletoe
drooped its head, hanging from the great chandelier in the
hall.

Fanny, coming in with Edward, settled him down to his tea and,
as she left the room, knew that he was hurrying about the great
cupboard secrets of his Christmas presents. She sighed. She
wanted Charles. She wanted him morning and night. She longed,
with aching desire, to throw her arms round him, to press her
cheek against his, to tell him that everything was well. She
could not; it was not that she judged him, it was not jealousy.
It was rather that the old Charles was accompanied now by a
stranger, someone whom she had not yet learned to know, someone
who might surprise her by a sudden, unexpected, devastating act.
Her love was, in a strange way, increased, but her trust was
gone.

Her loneliness was terrifying and already she could dimly
perceive approaching her a crisis when she must make some
tremendous decision. What reserves of force and power were in her
nature? For so many years she had not needed to summon them, and
now she did not know what kind of woman she was. Her own
weakness, by her sudden discovery of it, might appal her. She
distrusted herself as well as Charles.

Indeed now she distrusted everyone and everything. If Charles
could fail her, then how easily might she fail herself! It would
be an easy thing to tell Charles that she loved him and all was
well again. How happy he would be! But she might then be in a
relationship more uncertain and more dangerous than the present
one. It seemed to her that she knew nothing about Charles
now--how he would act, how think, how feel. She must build up a
new test of character. Meanwhile there was no time; there was no
pause in the house while Nicholas was there. She saw him now as
something driving them all relentlessly forward. Unless someone
held him in his course they would, none of them, ever recover one
another again. With every day he separated them more completely.
But who was there to stay him? For the first time she
began to realize his horrible power.

She went up through the dim house. She found that she
hated that it should have been Nicholas who had hung the
holly. She and Nell and Edward had always loved to do it. . . .
She sighed again and opened softly the door to see how the Old
Lady was getting on.

The dark purple curtains were already drawn. The only light in
the room was from the fire, which leaped wildly with sharp
tongues of pale yellow flame and threw long live shadows on the
wall. On the end of the bed Becky Sharp was curled asleep. Fanny
stepped forward to move her, then hesitated. The Old Lady, lying
on her side, was also asleep. Everything in the room slept save
the fire, which was silent like a dream-fire.

She stayed as though she herself were in a dream. Some alarm
held her. Something was wrong here. With a quick fear and with an
effort as though something were trying to root her to the floor,
she very softly crossed to the bed. The Old Lady was breathing
tranquilly, her eyes tightly closed, her upper lip fallen in, for
her teeth were in a glass on the washhand stand. It was perhaps
that, seen thus, she looked so very old, and only six months back
she had been so lively, so dominating. Now she was helpless and
the shadows of the fire leaped above her head.

Uneasy, although she did not know why, Fanny stole from the
room. In the passage there was a strong odour of chrysanthemums
and she saw, on a table above the turn of the stairs, a big bowl
of white blooms whose furred edges, under the electric light,
seemed to move. She thought that the scent of the flowers was too
strong--it might penetrate into the room--so, in both hands, she
carried the bowl downstairs.

While she placed it on the table in her room Charles stood in
the doorway.

He watched her; she looked up and said:

'Charles, I'm uneasy about the Old Lady.'

'Why?' He stood there, his hands in his pockets, looking, she
thought, like a sulky boy.

'I don't know why. That's what bothers me. I went in just now
to see that she was all right. She was sleeping. There was
nothing the matter and yet I felt this. It may have been the
chrysanthemums.'

'The chrysanthemums?' he repeated stupidly. Then he continued
quickly: 'Look here, Fanny--how long is this to go on?'

'Is what to go on?'

He leaned his heavy body against the wall, hunching his
shoulders, his head forward.

'I can't stand it. If you want to punish me, all right. That's
your affair. But I shall go away. Anything is better than
this.'

She sat down. She looked at him, then quickly away.

In a voice so low that he could scarcely catch her words, she
said:

'You must give me time.'

'Time for what?'

'Time to recover. Everything's altered.'

'Why?' he asked.

'My trust is gone--not only in you, in everything.'

He straightened himself up against the wall.

'Because of that one thing?'

'Yes--I suppose so.'

'Do you think,' he said, bringing the words out painfully,
'that I wouldn't forgive you anything--anything in the
world?'

'Would you? If I went away with a man for a month?
Would you forgive me?'

He hesitated. 'Yes,' he said at last. 'If you still loved me.
But, you see, you wouldn't. You couldn't. You're finer, better,
than me in every way. And it means more if a woman does it. It's
much more significant. What I keep on telling you is that this
wasn't significant. It meant nothing.'

'No,' she said. 'It didn't alter your own idea of yourself. I
can understand that. No man is sure that he won't, at some time
or another, be for a moment unfaithful. I've always known that.
But I thought you were different, not better or worse but
different. I've always thought that whatever else went
you wouldn't. It's my fault that I believed that, not
yours. And now it isn't a question of forgiveness but of getting
used to a new idea. I must have time.'

'So,' he said slowly, 'nothing will be as it has been
before?'

'No,' she said. 'Nothing. We're all changed. We're not
together any more.'

'And you don't love me now, Fanny?'

'Yes, I love you. More perhaps than I did. But I can't depend
on you. I've got now to depend on myself. I don't know that I
can. . . . I'm not probably more dependable than you are.'

After a long time he said:

'I see. That's clear. . . . It seems to me it's no use our
living together any more.'

She was terrified at that. She looked round, through the door
into his room, so that he should not see how suddenly frightened
she was.

'It must be as you think, Charles.'

'Perhaps if I went away for a bit you'd see--you'd understand.
. . .' Then he began furiously, the words tumbling over one
another: 'What I can't understand is that, just for this, only
because of this, the past is all nothing--all our love, all that
we've done, the children, our friendship . . . But women are like
that. Men have to keep all the rules all the time.
All the rules that women think important anyway--and if
you break one once then it's all up, it's all over. The past
doesn't count. Nothing matters. . . .'

'I haven't said that we must separate. I've only said that you
must give me time. . . .'

Fanny interrupted. 'No, no, not to punish anybody. But it's no
use being false. If I came to you and kissed you, Charles, and
said everything is all right . . . That would be easy, but it
would be untrue. Since Nicholas came we've all changed. We aren't
a family any more. I don't know how he's done it, but he's
separated us.'

'That's nonsense,' Charles broke in. 'You put it all down to
Nicholas. You say that we've all changed--well, so have you. Do
you remember how glad you were when he came, how you loved him,
how you wanted to give him everything?--and now, in such a short
time, you seem to hate him--'

'I want him to go!' Fanny cried. 'He may be my brother. I
can't help it. He despises me and laughs at me. He makes you all
laugh at me too. It's a fight between us. I can see that quite
clearly now--and, what's more, I believe it always was. I believe
that he's always disliked me. When we were children he used to
laugh at me; on the way to church, I can see us now, going across
the fields and Nicholas laughing at the way Matthew and I carried
our prayer-books. I'm sure that he came here because he had
nowhere better to go, but when he'd been here a little while our
old relationship revived again just as it used to do. He thinks
Grace and Matthew and me ridiculous, old-fashioned, religious. He
thinks it fun to separate us all, to make Nell and Romney laugh
at me, to make you look down on me. I wouldn't wonder if he
doesn't know somehow about--about what you did in the spring. He
knows everything, he can see everything at once. He always could.
When we were children he would tease us for things we'd done
which he'd discovered in some uncanny way. . . .'

Fanny raised her head.

'It's more than just you and me. It's home, all of us, whether
we stick together or not. He's made me miserable. I've been weak
about him. But I don't think I shall be weak any longer.'

Charles shrugged his shoulders.

'You can put it all on to Nicholas if you like. But it's just
one of those ideas women get in their heads. Nicholas is all
right. He's a damned fine fellow. You're trying to pretend this
isn't between you and me, which it is. I made a damned fool of
myself for a week or two. You needn't have known a thing about
it. Neither of us would have been a penny the worse if it hadn't
been for that letter I was ass enough to lose. You can't put that
down to Nicholas anyway!

'And now you've got the whip-hand over me and you're going to
let me know it. It's a grand game for women. They simply love it.
Sulk and be on your dignity and graciously grant me a kind word
once and again. Play with me as a cat does with a mouse. But you
shan't do it. I'll go away. I've said all I could, that I'm
damned ashamed of myself, that it was a kind of insanity, that
it's made no sort of difference in my love for you. But I tell
you what will make a difference. If this sort of thing
goes on! That can kill love--'

He stopped. He was aware, as she was, of moving into country
that was exceedingly dangerous, as though they might, both of
them, be pushed by pride, egotism, wounded feelings, into a
situation that would alter everything for ever.

Fanny said: 'That's unfair. Because you say you're sorry, you
expect me to be just as I was. You've changed. How can I
be the same?'

He came a few steps towards her. 'Look here, Fan. You can't
play with me just to satisfy your vanity. You want me to go down
on my knees, hang my head, wear sackcloth evermore. Well, I
won't. I wouldn't do that for any woman alive--or man either.
This is the first thing I've ever done you could complain of. And
if that's enough to kill all your trust in me, well, all I can
say is that your love can't have been very real--and that's a
fact.'

Now they were thousands of miles, spiritually, apart. She got
up. They stood close to one another, infinitely separated.

'You must do as you think right,' she said. 'I can't help it.
I can't be different.'

'You could,' he said, 'if you cared enough.'

At the door he turned.

'Look here, Fan. This is terrible. Of course we love one
another. We can't let a thing like this--'

'It isn't only this,' she answered. 'It's Romney and Nell and
you--even Edward. But I'm myself. I'm someone apart from you all.
I didn't know that until now. I thought I lived only for all of
you. But I don't. I live for myself too.'

'Very well, then,' he said angrily. 'You shall have it your
own way.' And he went, banging the door behind him.

The Old Lady struggled up from an awful descent that she had
made into icy clear-green waters. Her limbs were weighted as
though damp, clinging clothes were bound about them.

'I must rise! I must rise!' she was crying to
herself, and yet as she was drawn upward the terror that
accompanied her increased. With a tightening of the breath,
constriction of the heart, she reached the air, but it did not
flood her lungs as it should have done.

Gasping for breath, she raised her head and looked about her.
She saw the room very dimly: it was dark save for the leaping
fire, but in that light she saw the black cat that was not now
sleeping but stood, its back arched, stretching very softly its
legs, first one then another. It stared at her with its green
eyes. She hated it and intended to cry out, 'Take the cat away,'
but to her horror no words came. Only the agony below her heart
grew stronger as though a determined boneless hand were feeling
its way about her flesh and soon, when it had discovered what it
wanted, would squeeze and squeeze . . .

The pain was dreadful. There were drops in a bottle beside the
bed, but there was no one there to give them to her. The room
grew darker and the fire fiercer. The flames leaped on the wall
and she thought that perhaps the room was on fire. Was she to be
burnt alive here with no one to help her?

The cat moved quietly forward, looking at her. It paused
beside the bed, then, very gently, gathered itself together,
jumped and settled at the bed-end, crouched there, watching
her.

'Oh! Oh! Oh!' she cried within herself, but everywhere there
was silence.

The door opened and Nicholas came in. She knew that it was
Nicholas and yet he did not move but stood beside the door,
looking at her as the cat looked at her.

'Take away the cat, Nicholas! Take away the cat!'

But he did not move. He grew; he spread against the wall. The
cruel hand paused, then, with a fearful determined clutch,
squeezed her poor heart, and in that agony she died.

BATTLE FOR THE SPRING EVENING

This was a terrible beginning to the New Year. The days were
dark and cold, as though the town were invaded now with a dank
forest, half seen, half heard, closing almost invisibly about
roofs and streets, rain pattering down between the bare
stems.

With this chill, this darkness, this sense of apprehension
came the influenza. Not, everyone said, a pestilence as at the
end of the War, but bad enough, for many people died, quite
easily, with no attempt to resist, as though they well knew that
it was hopeless, that everything in any case was against them. No
one spent any money even when it was there, and America was in a
mess, Russia was in a mess, the Japanese were really disgraceful,
and the unemployed appeared quite ungrateful when people gave
them sets of draughts and backgammon to occupy their spare
hours.

Charles, who had never been good at cause and effect, went
about now like a dog who is spiritually wounded by his master. He
could settle to nothing. His wood-carving no longer gave him any
pleasure. It seemed to him that soon he would have no money, no
wife, and no children. Especially he was hurt and wounded by
Fanny, with whom now he was not in touch. And the children were
unhappy. And he missed quite dreadfully his old mother, whom he
had loved more than he knew, who had thought him perfect. He was
not perfect of course--very far from it. All the more comfort
then that someone should think him so! Now no one thought him
perfect. Everyone, save Nicholas, it seemed, disapproved of
him.

So he fell, very thoroughly, under Nicholas' influence. He was
humble about Nicholas. He thought it remarkable that Nicholas, so
brilliant, so modern, so well-read, should bother his head about
an old duffer. For he was an old duffer. Recent events had
shown him something of the attributes that he lacked. He must be
a bore and, thinking this for the first time, was the more
silent, the more confused.

He thought that he would discover what this new literature,
this new painting, was about. He would (he was told that he must)
look upon morals scientifically. Everything was Glands or Dreams
or both. If Fanny would but consider this she would be more
tolerant. . . .

Nell gave him first a novel by D. H. Lawrence. He found it
most depressing and, in spite of all that he wanted to feel,
altogether disgusting.

'I can't help it,' he said to Nell. 'I think sex is a private
thing. I don't want to know how people behave sexually. I
haven't enough curiosity, I suppose. And then this fellow says
the same thing over and over. And then he's always unhappy.'

So Romney gave him a gay story to read--a story by Essex
Waters called Stomach Pump.

'Here's this novel Romney gave me. It's one of the successes,
he says--and I can't understand a word of it.'

'Can't understand it?'

'No. I've read fifty pages and I don't know what it's
about. They are all staying in the country together. They slide
down the stairs on tea-trays. Someone's going to have a baby.
There's an awful description of some disease someone's got.
There's a pet dog called Ramsay MacDonald. And that's all
I've understood. What's the matter with me? Have I gone
potty?'

'No, Charles. Of course not. It's only a convention you've got
to get into.'

'But if it's so clever, if it's what everyone is reading, then
there must be something wrong with myself.'

Nicholas laughed and settled himself in a comfortable
armchair.

'Not a bit. But the arts have got to move on. You wouldn't
have everyone still write like Dickens, would you? People
have discovered a lot about human nature since Dickens died.
There's your subconscious, for instance.'

'My subconscious?'

'Yes. You're not really thinking what you think you're
thinking. You're not really doing what you think you're
doing. You work in layers. In the old days writers dealt only
with the top layer. Now they go down and down--ever so low.'

'But I don't want to go low.'

'Ah--that's because you're afraid to face the truth. You don't
want to see what you're really like.'

'No. I don't think I do,' said Charles. Then he asked rather
pathetically: 'But, Nicholas, are there never going to be any
jolly books again? Is it all going to be subconscious?'

'All the new interesting writing is,' said Nicholas.

'Well, then--I'll ask you another. Don't you think there's too
much about sex? I don't spend all my time wanting to fool about
with women. Nor do most men. Now if some man would write a novel
about wood-carving--that would be interesting.'

'Yes, of course. But writing is an art.'

'Well,' Charles said, 'it's all too damned serious for me. Now
Jorrocks is a good book--I've read it dozens of
times.'

They sat silent a little. Then Nicholas leaned forward and,
smiling with the utmost good-nature, said:

'You're a fine fellow, Charles. Don't you worry about the
young generation. There's always got to be one, you know. Now
look here, old man. I want to talk about things.'

'Yes?' Charles said. He was thinking about his mother and the
light that came into her eyes when he greeted her, and about
Fanny and the light that came into her eyes when . . . Now
both those lights were out. So he clung the more to Nicholas,
who, although a very clever man, found Charles worth while.

'I want to talk about the future. Soon I shall have been with
you for a whole year. You've all been awfully good to me--well,
all except Fanny. And that's part of what I want to talk
about.'

Charles' eyes darkened.

'Look here, old chap, don't you worry about Fanny. She isn't
quite herself just now. Some damned silly thing has happened to
upset her. I was the guilty party--I admit it--but she's making
such a song and dance about it.'

'What have you been doing, old boy?' asked Nicholas.

'Oh, nothing that matters to anyone but Fanny and myself.'

'I see. If you told me I think I could help.'

Charles hesitated.

'Oh, it's only--well, I wrote some letters to a woman. I
wasn't really in love with her. It was a silly little affair
while Fanny was away on a cruise. I've never done such a thing
before. I certainly never shall again. Anyhow Fanny found one of
the letters. It was among some of her papers in her room. . .
.'

'Good heavens!' said Nicholas. 'However did it get there?'

'I can't imagine. It was the worst luck in the world. Of
course Fanny was upset. It was quite right she should be. I said
how damned sorry I was. I tried to show her that it was nothing
at all. But you know what women are.'

'Yes, I know what women are,' said Nicholas.

'I only told you this, Nick, old man, to show you that you
mustn't pay any attention to Fanny just now. She's upset and not
herself. In fact she's changed in the most extraordinary way
lately. She was always so sweet and good-natured. But now she
snaps up at anything. But women are queer. Let them get an
idea into their heads--'

'I'm glad you've told me,' said Nicholas frankly. 'Because of
course it hasn't been very comfortable for me. You see, Charles,
I've come to a moment when I have to make up my mind.
Whether I go or stay--'

'Oh, you're not going? You mustn't think of going.'

'That's just it. I don't want to go, of course. Lizzie
and I have been happier here than we've ever been anywhere.' He
stopped a moment and looked at Charles. What a silly old
ass Charles was, and yet quite lovable. If he fell in with
Nicholas' plans, Nicholas felt that he might love him very much.
'You see, Charles, what I have in mind is that Lizzie and I
should make our permanent home here. The children like me, you
like me. Lizzie's devoted to Edward, and I feel that the time has
come for her to settle down. She'll be growing up soon and
England's really her proper home. You know, Charles, I'm a
worthless, wandering sort of vagabond, but Lizzie's everything to
me. I'd do anything for her--'

He stopped, surprised at his own sincerity. For what he said
was true. Lizzie was his passion.

'I know,' said Charles. 'I've seen how much you are to one
another.'

'My idea,' said Nicholas, 'is that I should pay for my share
in the house just as Matthew and Grace do. I think I shall be in
funds very soon. I've made a rather important acquaintance. A
woman--a Mrs. Agar. She's in with everybody, behind the scenes in
everything. She has already put me on to a thing or two and I've
done her a few small services. I think she might be useful to
you, Charles, as well.'

'What does she do?' asked Charles.

'You know what women are these days. They are as good
financiers as men--better very often. She's as sharp as a needle.
There are other things as well. I haven't been as idle all these
months as some of you have thought.'

'I've never thought you idle,' said Charles.

'No, but you must have thought pretty badly of me, borrowing
all that money. . . .'

'That's all right, old chap,' said Charles hurriedly.

'Well, you'll soon see that it is. You'll get your
money back and with profit. I don't want to leave
London, as things are, and I do want to stay here. If only
Fanny--'

Charles felt indignant about Fanny. Was she master of this
house or was he? Were they all to be upset simply because she
was? And now that his mother was gone there was all the more room
for Nicholas, who had livened the house up, was good for the
children--yes, and good for himself too.

'As far as I'm concerned, Nick,' he said, 'you're welcome to
stay. I think it's a jolly good idea. Good for us and good for
you. You must be sick of wandering all over the globe with no
place to go to.'

'Well, frankly I am. I'm a home-loving bird really. There's no
place like old England when all's said and done.' He added,
looking affectionately at Charles: 'You are a good chap,
Charles.'

First the snow, then the tempest, then the flood. England was
cursed. As the sky hung, a thick blanket of malevolence, over the
flooded fields, as the snow mounted hedge-high across the roads
of the North, as the cold pierced to the very heart, the
consciousness of doom crept through doorways, slimed the
window-panes, darkened lights at evening. There was no melodrama.
That the world was about to end with a whimper rather than with a
bang, that was only just, for man had lost his grandeur. He was
so stupid that nothing was left for him but to rail against
himself. He did not even rail with magnificence but, putting his
head in a gas-oven, made a quiet unspectacular exit.

Matthew, stung with the soft mischievousness of hesitating
snow, walked the streets. The snow had a salt flavour about it
and, touching the pavement, melted, for, like weak men of good
will, it had no purpose. A thin mist veiled the houses. The
traffic screamed, but men made no sound, as though shame were
voiceless. Across the spaces of Hyde Park Corner the cars
streamed between the statues, and Jagger's gun was the only
reality.

Matthew had been on his way to a meeting with his friends but,
half-way there, he had stopped his taxi, got out, dismissed it.
He could not go to the meeting because God was no longer real to
him. Nicholas had destroyed Him.

'He can never have been real if so slight a thing as vexation
with my brother can blot Him out. I have been cheating myself
with a sham, and that has been easy, because I have removed
myself from life, sitting inside my cosy room with everything
comfortable about me. And now at the first challenge I fail--I
can do nothing. I am sterile. Nobody listens to me. In myself I
have no courage. My brother mocks me.

'But even if I had courage it would be no better. For
courageous, strong men do not believe in God any more. Only the
old women and the hysterical and the superstitious. I thought
that God was a cloud of fire and a pillar of smoke and a
beautiful companion. Rather He is a fragment of wood that men
once made into a cross, a sponge lifted on a spear, a star that
has set. I believed in Him because I wanted Him. He can do
nothing for me because He does not exist. And because men know
this they too have become nothing. They have desperate courage
because life now is a joke and death is nothingness. They laugh
at one another because life without meaning is a silly
stupid-faced thing. For centuries they cheated themselves with a
faked nobility. They entered their Gothic cathedral and their
hearts were enraptured--enraptured with a cheat. For the first
time in the world's history they know that they are fooled, and
so with the brave despair of the doomed they make a machine and,
riding it, fling themselves into nothingness. . . .'

Nicholas had shown him this, not because he was clever, but
because he had proved Matthew helpless: Matthew, a silly old man,
a stuffed doll.

His agony was very terrible and, for any spectator, very
ludicrous. He was a stout little man, decently dressed, walking
past the railings of the Green Park. He carried a folded
umbrella. He did not know where he was going. He had no
destination. The snow fell more thickly and there was a faint
green growth, like a fungus, blanketing the sky.

Then, in his weariness, depression, futility, he had a vision.
He was weary, he had eaten no luncheon, he had not slept properly
for many a night. He suffered, as he always did under certain
cold winds, from neuritis in his right leg. So he stopped and
leaned against the railings and looked into the Park. The Park
was covered with white birds. When he first looked they spread
over the ground like a sheet of dazzling silver. But, even as he
watched, they rose in a wind of splendour. Thousands upon
thousands they beat the air with their strong wings. Their
whiteness was incredible, so pure and dazzling that it hurt the
eye, and, through their whiteness, the light shone.

They were compact like a cloud. Then they broke and, in
spirals of silver, rose higher and yet higher. They were strong
as eagles, for they had no fear, no hesitancy, but, knowing what
they had to do, marshalled in perfect discipline, flooded the
grey air, charging it into broken foam as the sea is whipped with
wind. Higher and higher they rose, and there stayed, far above
the bare trees but still visible, now thinning into lines so that
they threaded the sky with streams of light. Then they were gone
and the snow was falling in a sudden blizzard of storm. All the
sky was blotted out, and the snow lay now, hard and shiny, on the
pavement. Soon the whole city would be canopied.

'It was only the snow,' he thought. 'The birds were only the
snow. . . .'

He walked on.

'But how strong! How glorious! With what wings they beat the
air! How magnificent their direction!'

Edward on his side loved the snow. It was what, in London, he
was always wanting and so seldom got--snow that would lie, that
would glitter on wall and pavement and encrusted chimney with a
thousand, thousand crystals. It was bad luck, of course, that it
came after he had returned to school; there was one most glorious
evening when the sun, just before it set, glittered across the
roofs, the snow was a dazzling glory, and within the Westminster
precincts there was a perfect hush, broken only by bells and the
twittering of sparrows.

At the School gate he found, as he had hoped that he would,
Lizzie and the dog. This was perfection, for he cared now for
Lizzie and the dog beyond anyone else in the world except his
mother.

That he should care for the dog was natural. Ever since he
could remember he had longed to possess a dog, and now it
irritated him to consider that he might have owned a dog years
ago had he only been bold enough. The opposition had been
nothing.

His father had said, 'Wherever are you going to keep it?'
Romney had said, 'What do you want a dog for?' and his mother
(who seemed to take less interest in her son than she had done:
he was deeply hurt by this, but of course no one knew it) said
nothing.

There might have been more trouble had the dog not been so
perfect, had Mrs. Baldwin not at once taken a liking to him. This
last fact had its danger, because dogs degenerate at once if the
cook indiscriminately feeds them. But this dog knew that
he belonged to Edward. He had, it appeared, no longings for his
other home; when Edward went to fetch him he gave him one glance
out of his deep brown eyes and then followed him home. At first
he slept on a chair in the kitchen, but, after a night or two,
quietly walked upstairs and settled himself in a chair in
Edward's room. He was elegantly house-trained and apparently his
only aberration (and possibly it was not an aberration)
was that there was a rat somewhere in the pantry. For this, his
body crouched, his nose twitching, he would patiently wait by the
hour.

They say that dogs frequently resemble their masters and
mistresses. This dog certainly resembled Edward. He was plain and
self-contained. He did not believe in showing his emotions. He
was a quiet dog but, like his master, always knew what he was
about. He was also courageous like his master--yes, with one
notable exception. For he was terrified, from the beginning, of
the cat, Becky Sharp,

This was the more strange in that the cat paid him no
attention at all. The cat walked past him as though he did not
exist.

During the day, while Edward was at school, other members of
the family would take the dog for a walk. He behaved excellently
in the streets, being town-trained, and gave no trouble, but it
was only to Edward that he belonged; he would leave anything or
anyone for Edward. He was a one-man dog.

When Edward came out of the School gate he jumped about, ran
around, sniffing for smells, barking a little, prancing on the
snow like a thoroughbred charger. Then he walked close to his
master's heels, thoroughly satisfied with the world as Edward (he
was convinced) had so cleverly made it.

Edward, to-day, knew at once that Lizzie had something on her
mind. With all his quiet plainness he was remarkably perceptive
for a boy of his age. One of the reasons for the close friendship
of the two children was that they both perceived more than they
ever said and when they spoke spoke with honesty.

'Look here,' Edward said, 'we can go to the Park and see how
frozen the water is and get home by five. Mother will be in
to-day so I mustn't be late. I say--who was Casanova?'

Lizzie told him.

'It's only Humphries says he has a book about him and he was
the wickedest man in history. His father would be wild, Humphries
says, if he knew he had the book. Have you read it?'

Yes, Lizzie had read it and didn't think much of it. When they
had crossed the street in safety and saw the snowy ground
sparkle, under the last long yellow ray of the sun, in front of
them, Lizzie unburdened her mind.

What she had to say was sufficiently startling.

She was going away--not with her father, not with anybody, by
herself--and for ever.

'Gosh!' said Edward.

He looked at her and knew that he cared for her more, yes,
far, far more, than he had ever cared for anyone in his life
except his mother. (And his mother lately had been different.) It
was amazing to him that he could care for a girl so much. But
Lizzie was like no other girl that he had ever seen.

He saw her now, standing there on the snowy ground, looking
gravely at two solemn birds, crimson-winged, grey-necked, that
walked delicately, like Agag, picking up first one twiggy leg,
then another. The scarlet wings flamed against the white. Her
small pale face, sharp nose, little restrained independent
body--how well he knew these things!

'Going away!' he gasped.

'I think I shall go to Paris,' Lizzie said.

'And not come back?'

'No. I have some money. There's a lady I know in Paris.'

The dog, as though he knew that something serious was toward,
came and sat on his haunches beside them.

'You're not to tell anyone, Edward,' she said quickly. 'Not my
father.'

'No. Of course. But you can't leave Uncle Nicholas, can
you?'

She nodded her head.

'I must.'

'Why? Doesn't he want you?'

'Yes, he wants me--when he thinks about it.' She drew a deep
quick breath. 'Edward, have you seen a man in our house
sometimes, a little man with a yellow face?'

Yes, Edward had--once.

'I hate him. I've always hated him. He's followed us for years
and years, wherever we've been. When I was small it didn't
matter, but now it does. He speaks to me in the street, in the
house, and I've told father, but he does nothing. He's called
Abel,' she ended.

'What does he speak to you about?' Edward asked.

Lizzie became impressive. She caught Edward's arm and stood
close beside him, a thing that she never did, for she hated
contact with anybody.

'He's bad,' she said. She raised her head and looked out far
across the snow. 'They always say I'm old for my age. Going about
with father makes me old. Other children always seemed so stupid.
But in your house things have been quite different. Your mother
is good and you are too, Edward, although you are very silly
sometimes. You none of you know at all what the world is
like. At first I thought how silly that was, but now I don't
think it so silly.'

'But you love your father, don't you?' asked Edward.

'I don't know. . . .' She turned away. 'Often I hate him--and
he shouldn't let Abel come so close, because I'm growing older. I
won't be touched by anyone. You can, Edward, because you
don't know what grown-up people do.'

'Oh yes, I do,' said Edward.

'No, you don't. Not what they really do. People are horrid
except in your house. And if father won't see that they don't
touch me, then I must see myself.'

'What will you do in Paris?' asked Edward, his eyes very wide
open.

'This lady always said if I was unhappy I could come to her.
I'll learn to be a secretary or a nurse or drive a car. I shall
soon be fourteen, and fourteen is grown-up in France if you're
not French.'

'Won't you tell anybody that you're going?' Edward
asked.

'No. I shall just go to Victoria Station.'

'Oh, gosh!' Edward said. 'I'd like to go too--just for a day
or two. It wouldn't matter. . . . Mother wouldn't mind.'

'Of course your mother would mind,' Lizzie said
indignantly.

They turned homewards.

Edward frowned. 'I don't know. Everything's different at home
now. Romney won't do a thing and father's always grousing and
mother loses her temper. If I went off for three days they'd open
their eyes a bit.'

Lizzie said: 'And what about the School?'

'Oh, there are lots of schools,' Edward said airily. 'And
chaps leave ever so early now. Burton Minor went last term and it
was partly because he ragged old Pons and put those eggs in his
desk, but he said he didn't care and he was going to be an airman
as soon as he could. I wouldn't go more than a day or two, but
I'd see France and there are lots of things I could be. I know a
chap was a cabin-boy, and what's the use anyway of all the rot
they teach you at school?'

Lizzie shook her head.

'You love your mother, don't you?' she asked.

'Of course I love my mother,' he answered indignantly.

'Then you mustn't leave her even for a day.'

'But you love your father, don't you?'

'Yes. But no one shall touch me. He always thinks for himself.
Now I shall think for myself.'

'When do you think you'll go?' said Edward.

'I don't know. You swear you won't tell anyone?'

'I swear.'

'Then when I live in Paris, later on you can come.'

'Perhaps I'll fly over,' said Edward excitedly.

When he came into his room again he felt quite swollen with
his secret. Everything was changed since Lizzie had come. He was
no longer only a boy. He was something else as well, and there
was a world beyond the School, a world that he was now, like a
grown-up man, beginning to enter.

Yes, a world crystallized with snow--but they couldn't tell,
although they might guess, that with a breath the glitter would
be gone and, instead, a cold bitter tempest, a torrent of rain,
fields flooded and the kitchen swimming in water, the London
trees beaten with rain--nor could they tell that, after this,
there must follow the loveliest spring, the most sumptuous summer
that England had ever, in living memory, known, such
spring evenings and then so rich a sun that the ground is fiery
with harvest and the long nights stained with moonlight. . .
.

But this is only background. First the Spring Evening must be
fought for. It does not come only with longing. Moments of crisis
are heralded by the step of Hercules. As with Pholus:

Here Pholus lived:
One dove-breast noon,
Cloudless blue as that of fircomb-smoke,
Hanging so still above the Centaur hearth,
His house of wood gleaming in its new-sawn grain,
With resin in the knots of it;
There came a step,
A heavy footfall down among the pines,
Heavy as a bear. Nearer, nearer came,
With snapping of branches, of pine-needles trodden,
Coming up the wood to him, till Pholus stood
At his high doorway (for a man on horseback),
In the winter stillness. It came up from the world,
As from deep of ocean, to the cell of Pholus,
A man with measured step, a giant in the pine-wood;
He showed, he came forth, he was Hercules.

On an afternoon of pouring rain all the family were engaged,
and all, for a brief moment, through traffic and the clang of the
street-drill and the voices of women shopping and the four
unemployed young men singing Welsh songs in Piccadilly, were
aware of the approaching measured step.

Lottie said to Nell, who had appeared 'for only five minutes':
'Hector's in the other room changing. He thinks on a beastly wet
afternoon like this you have to change. What do you think,
darling?'

Nell, looking at Lottie, knew that she had arrived at some
decision. What was she going to do? She was no longer friendly,
although more demonstrative than ever. Nell was terrified--she
was also relieved. It was then that she heard the step, as though
beyond the windows a whole army were marching. It was doubtless
the rain.

'I'm going to leave you two,' Lottie said. 'I've got a date
with a gentleman. You're such good friends I know you won't be
bored.'

At the door she added:

'I saw your Uncle Nicholas last night.'

'Oh, did you?' said Nell. 'Where?'

'Oh, at a party. He was most amusing--and he gave me some good
advice.'

When Hector came in Nell said: 'It's come, Hector.'

'What's come?'

'Lottie's decided on something.'

'How do you know?'

'Oh, by what she said, the way she looked.'

Hector caught his breath.

'I believe you're right. She's been everywhere lately with
Ellstein, the film man. It's Paradise itself to her to be able to
go to films all day and every day for nothing. I think she may
leave me!'

'Oh!' Nell drew a deep breath.

'Yes--but she'll do something devilish first.'

They sat on the sofa close together. They looked extremely
young but not helpless.

Hector said: 'What would you mind her doing most?'

'Telling mother,' Nell said. 'But perhaps not. It's time we
had everything out at home. You can't think what it is at home
now, Hector. We've all lost touch with one another, and it can't
go on. There's going to be an unholy row any minute.'

'I'm frightened about you,' Hector said. 'I haven't a
job. There isn't one in sight. Nearly everyone I know is out of a
job. What's going to become of us all? I'm young, fairly
intelligent, ready to do anything, and no one will give me even
two pounds a week. Nine out of ten of us are superfluous and will
be for evermore. Frightening? I tell you it turns your bones to
water.'

She put her arms round him, holding him very close.

'Once we've had our row at home,' she said, 'and got rid of
Lottie, we'll go on all right. I've got heaps of ideas. There's
your poem, there's the theatre. I've got a notion of a new sort
of shop--'

She listened. 'Isn't it funny? The rain's like an army
marching. I've a kind of feeling, Hector, that to-night's the
night.'

He kissed her. 'What sort of night?'

'I don't know. But a scrap, a climax. Since Granny died it's
been piling up. When I see you to-morrow I shall have something
to tell you, I'm sure.'

'Will you telephone if you want me? I'll come straight along
and face the whole family.'

She laughed.

'I expect I can manage. It's really only mother. She's always
been so gentle, lived only for us, been always so sure that
everything would go right so long as we all loved one another.
Old-fashioned, and I suppose I'm old-fashioned caring so
much about the family. But we're going to have a family,
aren't we?'

'Of course,' said Hector.

'Then I shall care in my own way just as much as mother does.
I can't see that anything changes--except that my generation says
"bloody" sometimes and wears no clothes if possible and is
open-minded about sex. The feelings underneath are the same. When
I have a child by you I shall love it just as much as mother
loves me and Romney and Edward. I'll want it to be good and happy
and have enough to eat. And when it goes off and leaves me I
shall find it just as hard as mother is finding it now. Don't you
think so?'

'I hope so,' said Hector. 'The only difference will be--how
are we going to feed our children? We oughtn't to have any if we
can't feed them.'

'Yes,' Nell said, meditatively. 'They won't be able to be
lazy, that's certain. And they won't have to mind what they do.
But we'll make them ready for anything and teach them not to
grumble. It's my idea that their generation will be the
bravest there's ever been and the most adaptable
and the most hygienic.'

'You're a bit of an optimist, darling,' Hector said.

'Yes, I am. Because I love you and because I think people
don't see far enough.'

'I read a book last week,' Hector said, 'about people on the
dole. They are ready to be brave and work hard and all the
rest of it, but there's simply no place for them, no place at
all.'

'By the time our children come along,' Nell said,
'there will be a place for them. We're all too impatient
perhaps. Thirty years from now all this confusion will have
arranged itself in some new order. It's our job to see that it
does. Even now there are more happy people in the world than
there were a hundred years ago or even fifty. People care
now about housing and employment and disease far more than they
did before the War. We want to make things different.
Father's mother when she was a girl didn't give a damn.'

An hour later, before she went home, she took Hector's face
between her hands and, looking into his eyes, said:

'Every hour I love you more. Every day I know better that this
is for ever.'

Then she came suddenly to a decision.

'I'm going straight back to tell mother.'

Hector looked frightened.

'Wait,' he said. 'Think what--'

'No. I've thought long enough. Do you know one thing--very
curious? The longer we go on like this, the more I'm under Uncle
Nicholas's influence. Perhaps it's because he knows and
the rest of the family doesn't. Again and again, I find myself
saying something to mother as though he wanted me to. I've
come to the conclusion he hates her.'

'Why, I thought they adored one another,' Hector said.

'He doesn't adore her. He's always forcing one to take
sides. He seems to have some sort of power over me because he
knows about us. So mother must be told.'

She went with Hector's blessing.

Meanwhile Nicholas had tea with his lady of Fortnum and
Mason's. He went because you never know when a friend in need may
be useful. He stayed very much longer than he had intended
because everyone found him so charming. His hostess, her husband,
her brother, a lady calling, an old aunt, he captured them all.
It was easy work for him, like cutting butter with a knife. He
found that they were rich, generous and, by his intellectual
standards, extremely stupid.

'You must come and stay with us in the country,' said
his hostess.

'Indeed I will,' Nicholas said.

'And bring your little girl.'

'I never go anywhere without her.'

Was this a waste of time? he asked himself, as he hailed a
taxi in the rain.

It was, of course, if he had made his permanent home in
Westminster. As indeed he had. He thought of them all, sitting
comfortably back in his taxi, as a trainer thinks of his lions
and his tigers: Fanny, Charles, Grace, Matthew, Romney, Nell. . .
. Yes, he had settled down at last.

He paid a visit to Abel, who now had two scrubby little rooms
in a street off Portland Place. Abel liked to be scrubby. He made
a jungle of civilization. Anywhere that he lived acquired very
quickly a musty foetid air, something indescribable, something
like an animal-shop where the birds' droppings, the scent of
stale water, the closeness of the cage, defy light and air and
the changing of the hours. On the table were the remains of a
meal, clothes were thrown on to chairs, the windows were
close-shut.

And now their relations were changed, although Nicholas did
not notice it because he himself was changed.

'I suppose,' Nicholas said, 'the only way I shall ever get rid
of you now, Abel, is to murder you.'

(He might do it one day if there was an easy, safe method. It
would be no crime. He looked at him, speculating about
methods.)

Abel grinned.

'Why? I'm your best friend.'

'If you speak to Lizzie again I shall murder you.
That's what I've come to talk about. We're going to stay in
London now, to stay for evermore. I suppose you're a permanency.
All right. But on condition that you never speak to my daughter.
You've been bothering her, she tells me.'

'Ah, she's a nice girl,' Abel said. 'She's growing up. Why
shouldn't I speak to her sometimes? I've known her since she was
a baby.'

'It's just because she's growing up that I won't have you near
her. You're a nuisance to her. She hates the sight of you.'

Abel sat forward in his chair, his body gathered taut, as
though he were about to spring.

'Captain--listen. What I do, what I don't do--what can
you do about it? I think things are different now. You are
settled here in London. I too am settled. I make some money
independent of you. I have a nice girl--perhaps two nice girls. I
care for you, Captain, very much. How should I not when I know
you so very well? You say you murder me one day? But you cannot.
You murder yourself. I am a part of you now. I am Abel, but I am
also Captain Nicholas Coventry. We have become so close that we
are now one man. And, as the time passes, I will be more and more
of you. I am inside your body.'

And, in this room, it seemed almost to be so. Some of the West
Indian heat was here. Without his clothes Nicholas moved, under
the chequered sunlight, through the scrub while the palms, the
banana-trees closed above his head and, in a sudden clearing, he
saw the surf break, far below, on the border of that wine-dark
sea. Abel was close to him. His knees projected forwards and on
them his brown hands clenched the bones.

'God, it's close in here!' Nicholas said. 'Why do you never
open a window?'

'I like it warm. And so do you, Captain. I know you. You have
that good, quiet, English family in your hand, but that is not
real except that it is convenient to have them there because of
what you get from them. I am your real life, Captain. We have
grown closer and closer. I am very happy about it.'

He got up, knelt on the floor at Nicholas' feet, put his brown
hands on Nicholas' chest, touched, for an instant, with the light
flicker of a bird's wing, Nicholas' cheek. Then he got up.

'Have a drink, Captain?'

Nicholas said: 'I don't mind, and for God's sake open a
window, you dirty little swine.'

And Romney? Romney's afternoon was not so good. First he was
at the Galleries, then he went to the Book Club and had a word or
two with his Mary Benson, then in the street outside the Book
Club he had some bad news, then he went home and saw his mother.
But before he saw his mother she saw someone else. All
these things were of importance.

Even time (although it does not exist) was on this eventful
day important. As thus:

Lottie said good-bye to Hector and Nell at five minutes to
four. Nicholas drove to Abel's at five minutes to five, Fanny
received her visitor at ten minutes past five, Romney had his
piece of bad news at a quarter to five.

During this same period of time from 4 to 6 p.m., there was a
riot in Rio de Janeiro (thirty people killed), shops looted in
Havana (Machado not at all popular), five peasants murdered in
the Ukraine, and a frontier battle in China. Other pleasanter
things happened too, like Edward getting ninety out of a hundred
for his essay on the Panama Canal.

Meanwhile everything continued to go wrong with Romney. At the
Galleries he was greatly irritated by the visit of two novelists.
They did not come together but met by accident. One was thin, one
was fat. As it should be, the thin one was cynical, the fat one
exuberant. They pretended to be delighted at the meeting and
pressed visits the one on the other. Nevertheless they succeeded
in a very short time in planting daggers. Romney, overhearing,
disliked the exuberant one the more. He was kind, charitable and
modest. He was having luck that he did not deserve in these bad
times. His forthcoming work had subscribed at the booksellers'
quite amazingly. No, he did not deserve it. After all, he had
been writing for thirty years and it was sheer luck for him that
people still read him. To which the cynical one: He was
glad that someone at least was selling and especially his
dear fat friend who so thoroughly deserved it. He never could
understand why the more modern critics were so spiteful to
his fat friend--jealousy in all probability--but it must be
maddening to be so malignantly treated. To which the fat
one: Ah, well, he was a philosopher by now. And he did not know
that he was so badly treated. The quite new
generation was rallying to his side. Had the cynical one seen a
review of his work by young Tom Noddy? Fresh from Oxford and most
appreciative. To which the cynical one: No. He hadn't seen it. He
was delighted. Young Noddy would get on. He knew on which side
his bread must be buttered.

And so on. They did not look at the pictures.

Romney was revolted, and in his five minutes with Mary (for
she was busy to-day and could give no more) poured out his
bitterness.

'Writers are disgusting with their bitterness and
meanness and jealousy. They are worse than painters or
musicians.'

Mary did not think so to-day. All artists are
sensitive, egoists, fighting for their lives. They create and,
living with their creations as they do, think them important.
They are children, building castles on the sand. And now Romney
must go. She smiled at him as though she loved him--which,
secretly, she was beginning to do.

Then, in the street outside, he met Westermarck, an old friend
of his and Harry's. On seeing him his heart leapt. He had heard
nothing of Harry for so long. Now there would be news. There was.
Harry had died, three days before, of pneumonia.

Romney walked on, not knowing his destination. The rain poured
down upon him, spat upon him from the pavement, umbrellas brushed
his hair, cars hooted at him. He did not perceive. Harry was
dead.

His love for Harry swept over him like a fire. For it had been
a real love, going deep beyond flesh and blood, into the only
true world. The foundation of that love had been Harry's
strength. Harry might be, intellectually, a fool, having no
imagination, no taste, no true sympathy, but he had been strong,
his feet set full-square, his courage almost divine, his
simplicity superhuman. Whatever went, however beastly this
rotting world might be, Harry remained, for he had cared for the
real things. He had known what the real things were. Now, with a
breath, with a puff of wind, Harry was gone. Westermarck, who had
been a friend, spoke of him casually. These hurrying multitudes
faltered no whit because Harry was dead. His leather arm-chairs,
his pipes, his golf, his laughter were already forgotten. He
would never now marry the charming girl, take his young son to
Rugby matches, be proud of his beautiful daughters.

Romney had loved him. He would never love anyone again like
that. All the world was shadow, and life--oh, life was cursed and
rotten and false! This was the end.

So when, wanting only to be alone, he went to his room and
found his mother counting his shirts and collars, he saw her as
nothing but an intolerable disturbance.

He saw her kindness and mildness and gentleness and
awkwardness as insults to his own state. Her tall figure in its
dark grey dress with the black cuffs, a wisp of her hair straying
into one eye, her face flushed--all these things were his past
life, belonging to a dead and gone world; he loved her of course,
but as one loves part of oneself that is now more recollection
than conscious present. So he saw her as, carrying Harry with
him, he came into his room to be alone.

He could not know that at this very moment the crisis of her
whole life was upon her because of the visitor who had left her.
He also could not know that never after to-day would he think his
mother old-fashioned again. She herself, looking up, scarcely saw
him, so deeply preoccupied was she with her own problem.

She said: 'Oh, Romney!' Then, her mind altogether away from
this, she went on: 'I think the shirts are all right.
There's a black-and-white one--'

'Something awful's happened,' he began.

'Oh, what is it?' she cried and, had he not been so intent on
his own circumstance, he would have known that she was alive,
just then, to danger--danger from any corner. . . .

'Oh, nothing--I can't tell you, I can't tell anyone--'

She said then a strange thing, straightening her body, putting
her hands to her hair.

'You too. No one here tells one anything. It comes from
outside.'

But he was not listening. He went up to her.

'Look here, mother. I've got to go away.'

'Go away? Have you done something too?'

'I? No, nothing. Of course not. But I must get out of England.
I must find a job somewhere abroad--'

'Why!' She put her hands on her breasts. 'What have you
been doing?'

'I tell you I've not been doing anything. But I hate England.
I hate this house. I'm not interested in my job any more. I'm no
good at it . . . I . . .'

'What has Nicholas been saying to you?' she interrupted him
fiercely.

'Uncle Nicholas? What has he got to do with it?'

'Everything.' Then she went on: 'Perhaps you had better
go. Perhaps we'd all better go! Sell the house. Separate. We are
no use to one another any more.'

He thought she was going to cry. She stood there, her eyes
shining, her head up, 'almost like a crazy woman,' he thought
afterwards when he looked back on it. For now he did
perceive that something was wrong with her and that his was not
the only trouble in the world. And behind his own distress there
stirred the eternal truth that he loved her, that life without
her would be impossible. And it might be that during these last
months he had been forgetting her and . . .

But she gave him no time for repentance. She took two of the
shirts that she was holding and threw them on the bed.

'Look after your own clothes, Romney,' she said, and left him
extremely astonished.

Fanny had in truth very good reason to be upset, for but now
she had had (and from her own daughter) terrible news.

She had been sitting in the drawing-room waiting for tea. She
would be, she expected, alone unless Grace was in. She would be
glad to be alone, for she was nearly at the end of her
endurance.

Then Nell came in.

'Hallo!' she said. 'Anyone for tea?'

'No one but ourselves,' said Fanny.

'That's good.' (She went straight for it because she was
frightened.) 'Mother, I've come straight back to tell you
something. I've been struggling to for months. I've simply been
too cowardly.'

('More trouble,' thought Fanny.)

They sat down together on the sofa, hand in hand.

'It's just this,' said Nell. 'For six months now I've been
living with a married man.'

'Oh, dear!' Fanny cried, and then from the very bottom of her
heart: 'Oh, you shouldn't!'

Her brain turned. The room turned over and in this whirligig
she saw pictures: Nell playing as a little girl with a dog on the
lawn, Nell--aged fourteen or so--asking her certain questions,
Nell kissing her good-night. Then with these some slim gentleman,
dressed in a frock-coat, saying to her: 'You've got to be modern
now . . .'; a sentence from some book: 'Science and hygiene have
altered all this.'

Then sheer alarm and panic. Nell was going to have a baby.
Nell would be in a divorce case. Nell would run away to China or
Africa; and then morality--Nell was wicked, Nell had broken the
Law, Nell was wicked; and then all these lost in the one thought
that Nell must be protected, be cared for, be defended against
the world.

At last, when the room had settled down and her heart was
beating less violently, she said:

'Oh, Nell--you! I never would have dreamt it!'

Nell then, very white in the face, told her about it. She told
her about Hector, she told her about Lottie.

'She doesn't care for him, not a little bit. She's going off
with another man. Hector and I love one another quite terribly,
mother.'

'Why did you tell me now,' Fanny asked, 'when for so long you
haven't done?'

(Afterwards, thinking about it, she was shocked to remember
that it was not Nell's sin but Nell's silence that hurt her
most.)

'I was afraid to,' Nell said. 'Girls of my generation aren't
supposed to be afraid of a little thing like this, are they? But
I was. I didn't think the thing itself wrong. After all, I wasn't
cutting anyone out. Hector was miserable with Lottie. But the
deceit has been hateful.'

'It needn't have been,' Fanny said.

'I couldn't tell you. Only Uncle Nicholas knew.'

Fanny said: 'Nicholas.'

'Yes. He knew Lottie. He gave Hector and me lunch and found
out all about it. And the more he knew and you didn't, the
more--'

She got up and said in a shrill, small voice, the defiant
voice that she had as a child when she had done wrong.

'Well, I've told you.'

'Nicholas knew--and you were lying to us all the time.'

'Not lying.'

'Yes--on those week-ends you said you were going to
friends.'

'Hector was a friend.'

The look of misery on Fanny's face beat Nell down.

She was on her knees, holding her mother, looking up into her
face.

'It's all right--Hector and I will marry soon. Oh, mother!
don't look like that!'

But Fanny said: 'What use am I to any of you? You all deceive
me--and for you to do this, Nell--so secret, so false. . .
. What has happened to everybody?'

She got up. She put her hand to her forehead.

'I'm bewildered. I don't know what I shall do--'

She went to Romney's room and began mechanically to tidy his
clothes. Thus Romney found her. . . .

Then, half an hour later, after throwing Romney's shirts on to
the bed, Fanny went back to the drawing-room. It was as silent as
the South Pole. There are crises in the lives of all of us when
everything rushes to a single point of action. It is only a
moment of time that we are given, but our fate is now to be
decided. We are fortunate if, at this crisis, the alternatives
are clearly presented to us. Often they are confused. But at
this, the most important hour of Fanny's life, the issues were
perfectly clear.

During this time no other person entered the room. It remained
bare for her to make her decision. Some small things acted with
her--the Japanese screen and two figures in it, a man raising a
sword, a woman standing beside a tree in blossom. Also a small
painting hanging on the left of the fireplace that represented a
bonfire burning in a clearing of a wood. And the rings on her
fingers.

At first she could think of nothing but Nell. Nell, whom she
had believed pure and perfect, had for months past been a married
man's mistress. Then the other figures crowded about her: Charles
who had been unfaithful to her, Romney who wanted to leave her,
Edward who had some secret from her.

They had all betrayed her. That was the first thing that she
saw.

Her emotions then were wildly revengeful. She had always been
considered a mild, sweet, loving woman. She was not mild nor
sweet nor loving. At that first moment, moving as it seemed into
the very heart of the screen so that she stood beside the man
with the sword, she hated them all! They had betrayed her. What
could she do to punish them? Old, forgotten, submerged rages rose
in her. She was one with herself as a small child who had bitten
her governess's finger through to the bone. She was again
stamping on the floor of her bedroom, throwing the china to the
ground until it lay in fragments about her. Once again she hit
Grace on the mouth and made her lip bleed. Once again she cried,
as she had done once on a Sunday: 'I hate God! I hate God! He's a
beast!'

She was sitting forward on the sofa, her body very still, her
hands clenched, but she took the sword from the warrior's hand
and, raising it, waited for the enemy. But no enemy came. Only
the clock ticked. The coals stirred in the fire.

An immense desolation seized her. All sentimental people who
are sensitive to the opinions of others are frequently desolate.
Fanny had often been so. But this was something other. This was
the solitariness of the woman under the blossoming tree, whom
beauty and life surrounded and she herself was isolated!

And what isolation! Only Janet in the whole world still
needed her. At the thought of Janet she rose from the sofa and
began to pace the room, her eyes staring at the wall-paper, the
pictures, the furniture, seeing none of them and yet
photographing them so intensely on her mind that she would never
see them again without thinking of this hour.

She would run away to Janet! She would leave the whole lot of
them and Nicholas could do what he liked. Charles? . . . Edward?
. . . Leave Charles, leave Edward? Why, yes, if they cared for
her so little!

And once she was gone she would never come back! She would
make her own life and they could make theirs.

'My own life! My own life!' she cried aloud to the listening
chairs, the watching mirror, the picture of the bonfire in the
wood.

Wasn't that what every woman of middle-age demanded and never
got? There she had been for years and years sacrificing herself,
enduring the pains of childbirth, submitting herself unselfishly
to her stupid, greedy husband's desires (for Charles was
stupid--yes, and greedy too), serving his children, slaving for
him--and what did they do? How did they repay her? How had
Charles repaid her?

Well, she had had enough of sweetness and goodness and
submission. She would go to Janet; but did Janet care for her any
more than did the others? Had not Janet left her at a moment's
provocation? Ah, but then, Nicholas . . . Janet had hated
Nicholas from the first, Janet had foreseen . . .

At the thought, at the name--Nicholas--Fanny stopped her
walking. She stood staring into the Japanese screen.

It was Nicholas who had done all this.

Her desire for vengeance, her sense of desolation, fell from
her. She stepped one further pace, out of her own heart, away
from her egotism, into a truer reality. Yes, Nicholas had done
this, but could he have done it were she the woman she
thought herself? What did she think that she was? She said
often about herself that she was untidy, poorly educated,
forgetful, enthusiastic at the wrong time, too talkative, often
foolish in company. She admitted these things because people
forced her to admit them. But in her heart she made allowances
for all of them. And besides the allowances, she had, as so many
of us have, the secret belief that if only everyone knew the
whole truth the world would be amazed at our integrity, our inner
wisdom, our courage under superhuman difficulties. Her religion
even was in part built of this. Even in a quite trivial moment
when Mrs. Frobisher would say, 'But, Fanny! Esthonia's nowhere
near China!' she could think: 'God sees me. He knows what
a fine nature I have, and it's only He who has seen my triumph
over temptation, the way that I have made ends meet, my patience
with Charles.'

She did not say to herself consciously, as she undressed at
night: 'Yes, I'm a good woman--fine, if only one knew the
truth.' She was not at all a vain woman, but she must defend
herself, as we all must, and the battlements of her castle she
had built with her own hands.

Now--and this was the real crisis for her of this whole
sequence of events--at the thought of Nicholas and what he had
done she beheld herself as she was.

'If I had been a different woman--stronger, wiser, less
selfish, more far-seeing, could he have had this power?'

No. He could not. The power that anyone has over oneself is a
criticism of one's own lack of power.

It had been easy enough when all had gone well to think
herself sweet, charming, unselfish, a perfect wife and mother.
They had, all of them, encouraged her in that belief.

When, nearly a year ago, she had told that little woman in the
shop that all was beautifully well at home she had,
unconsciously, reflected on her own virtues. And with that public
statement had come the challenge.

It was as though God had been listening to her and had said:
'You think you're fine, do you, and have done everything well?
Now we'll see.'

She had spent the last six months in accusing the family. She
had been aghast at the things they had done. But would any of
this have happened had she been a finer woman? And if they
had happened would not a finer, stronger woman have
bravely dealt with them?

Would Nicholas have had the power had she herself been
more powerful? She looked at the screen, at the picture, and they
had a deep significance for her. She had not wielded the sword,
she had not known the patience of the woman by the tree, she had
neither the beauty nor the strength of the fire in the wood.

She sat down on the sofa again. Quieter now, moving in a
wider, freer, less selfish world, she gathered her strength. It
was not too late, although not a moment was to be lost. It was
her strength against her brother's. She must challenge him at
once. Either she would go or he would.

In connection with Nicholas two things had happened yesterday.
Charles, in that shy, defensive manner that he adopted now to
her, had mentioned that Nicholas would probably remain in the
house indefinitely.

'It seems he likes being here,' Charles said. 'He'll pay his
share of the housekeeping.'

And the other was that, walking home, she had passed a
curiosity-shop, and there, in the window, very chastely
displayed, was her own gold snuff-box! She had stared and stared.
She could not believe her eyes. Then she had entered the shop and
made enquiries. . . . Nicholas himself had sold the snuffbox. She
did not enquire the price he had received.

There must be then no delay. Either she went or Nicholas went.
She would make the challenge at once: no time better than this
evening, after dinner. They would be all at home to-night.

Having come so far her heart began to beat wildly with sheer
panic. Like Charles she detested scenes. Anything like public
melodrama appalled her and seemed to her in the very worst
taste.

But this . . . what was it but melodrama?

'Well, all of you. Here we are. Now you can choose. Either
Nicholas or I leave the house tomorrow--'

What a thing for a sister to say about her brother--in
public--in front of her own family! And suppose then that they
said: 'All right, dear. You go. You needn't stay away for long.
You've been very queer lately and certainly need a holiday.' They
would not take her seriously. Of course not. They never had.
After that she must go. She would go to Janet. And then suppose
that after all they did not want her to return?

Odder things than that had happened. Nell was in love and
would be married. (Somewhere, deep within herself, she was
appalled that she was not more truly shocked at Nell's conduct.)
Romney had told her that he wanted to go abroad. And Charles?
Could it be that after all these years of married happiness they
would separate? It could. Had not, only last year, the Daniel
Caines separated after twenty years of happy marriage?
Incompatibility. Charles was tired of her. Had he not been
unfaithful to her within the last year?

She would go. She might return. And to what? To find Nicholas
now completely established and all of them contemptuous of her
for her melodrama and weakness.

But what was the alternative? To say nothing. To submit. To be
sweet and domestic and careless and indulgent once more. To
behave to Charles and Romney and Nell as though nothing had
occurred. And Nicholas established here for ever. . . .

She could tell them about the snuff-box. That might shock them
a little. But no. She would use no extra weapon. As her thoughts
marched the issue became ever clearer. She was fighting for her
family against Nicholas. If her family did not truly love her,
above all, if Charles did not love her, then she might as well
go. Nicholas should remain.

And she knew that a challenge would tell her everything. She
would make them perceive that this was real and that all
the events of the past year had led to this. Nicholas too would
perceive it. He was much too clever not to.

At the thought of his cleverness, her blood, to quote the good
words of innocent narrators, 'ran cold.' She began to shiver. She
was seized there, on the sofa, with violent trembling. From the
very beginning she had been afraid of Nicholas. During his ten
years' absence she had forgotten and at the first sight of him
she had rejoiced, but he had not been in the house a day before
she began to remember.

Now the thought of facing him in the open horrified her. He
would have some plan. He would influence the others to mock. He
would defeat her scornfully.

She looked at the screen, at the man with the sword.

If she were defeated it was not Nicholas that defeated her. It
would be because, with all these years, she had not lived so that
her husband and children loved her. She had not been fine enough
to make them do so.

If she were defeated it would be because of herself.

She nodded her head at the screen. In this room, after dinner
to-night, the man with the sword should see which way it
went.

Then of course the door opened and it was Nicholas who looked
in.

'Hullo, old dear. Sitting all by yourself?'

She went towards him, smiling.

'Yes. I've been dozing, I think.'

He put a hand on her arm and lightly kissed her cheek.

'You'll be in to dinner, won't you?' she asked.

'Yes. I'm getting ever so domestic.'

'We'll all be in. How nice! It's quite a long time since we
have been.'

Dinner that evening was very gay. They had not been all of
them together for that meal since the Old Lady died. Nicholas was
most amusing and told one story after another, most of them
merry, but one, over the dessert, very sinister about a house in
Jamaica once lived in by a slave-owner, and still a thin negro,
with head on one side, his legs bound in rags, cries from an
upper room pitifully as his back is lashed, and dogs howl, but
there are no dogs, no negro, only the sea beating almost to the
broken doors of the deserted house.

When they went up to the drawing-room he said that they must
play vingt-et-un. He took charge of them all, arranging
the table, telling them where they were to sit, pouring the
counters on to the cloth, saying that he would be Bank.

He made Grace sit by him, and she, smiling, for she dearly
loved any game of chance, but terrified of Nicholas, submitted as
though she were hypnotized by him.

Fanny was at the opposite end of the table from Charles. He
looked at her once, his eyes staring at her out of his round
ruddy face. She knew what he was saying to her.

'How long is this silly farce to continue?' She knew that he
was beginning to be angry as a boy is who is lost in a maze. 'Why
don't you do something about it?' he asked her. 'Forgive me or
scold me. I'm losing my patience.'

And she looked at Nell, who was laughing and joking as though
she had no conscience at all. She was on Nicholas' other side and
he made little jokes to her in her ear.

Once or twice he told Fanny what to do, as though he possessed
her too. She had the Bank and he wanted to buy it from her. She
refused to sell.

Then suddenly she let him have it and she could see that he
was thinking: 'You poor silly creature! I can do what I like with
you.'

As his spirits rose and his consciousness of commanding them
all grew, he developed in his mind the amusing fancy that they
were in fact all his puppets. He had seen once, at a music-hall,
a mesmerizer who put his subjects through absurd antics, making
one crawl upon the floor, another drink from an empty glass,
tilting it until he had swallowed the last drop, another dance as
though to a hornpipe. How amusing if he could do this with them
now, making Grace crawl on her knees, and Charles strip himself
to his shirt, and Fanny--what would he make that big, flushed,
silly, amiable sister of his do?

Only with Matthew he could do nothing. That thick-set little
brother of his spoke very seldom, seemed not to take much
interest in the game.

'By Jove, how he hates me!' Nicholas thought. 'I'll have him
out of the house before much longer. His monkey religion can go
elsewhere.'

'Come on, Matthew, be a sport. Have another.'

'No, thank you, Nicholas.'

He looked at his own cards.

'Pay twenty,' he said.

It was not, of course, long before he had accumulated in front
of him a great pile of counters. In games of chance he had always
an uncanny luck. Anything that did not matter. But, even in a
small, unimportant thing like this, it was pleasant to win, and
there was great comfort in the thought, present with him to-night
more than ever before, that here at last he was settled down.
Here was a safe refuge for himself and Lizzie. It would not be
long before he could persuade old Charles (of whom he was really
very fond) into a number of most profitable schemes. He would
turn Matthew out and take his room for a private sitting-room.
Nell would marry, Romney marry or go abroad--and then with Fanny
and Charles and Grace slipping into an obedient submissive old
age, the house would be his. It would suit him very well.

'Come on. Pay up, all of you,' he said, laying his cards on
the table. 'I doubled you, remember.'

The clock struck half-past ten. Fanny got up.

'That's half-past ten,' she said. 'That's enough for
to-night.'

They were all very startled. She stood, her hands pressing the
table, looking at them. There were loud protests.

'My dear Fanny,' Nicholas said. 'We were only just
beginning.'

'I say, mother!' cried Romney.

'No,' she said. 'Settle up. It's time we stopped.'

Her voice was changed. They all noticed it--and not only her
voice, but the way she stood, something tense in her carriage.
Charles said:

'All right, Fanny. If you think so.'

They settled up, paid their debts. The cards were slipped into
the drawer of the table.

'Well, good night, all,' said Romney. 'I'm for bed.'

'No--wait a minute,' Fanny said. 'I want you all to stop a
minute. There's something we've all got to discuss.'

She, above the terror in her heart (for now she was committed
to the event, whether she would or no), saw them all transfixed
in their different movements. Grace was still in her chair by the
table, Matthew had gone quietly to the armchair near the fire,
Charles, his legs apart, stood, his hands in his pockets, staring
at her, Nell was on the sofa and Romney beside her. Nicholas
stood by the fireplace, lighting a cigarette.

She herself sat down in the chair nearest to her, for her
limbs were trembling. It was placed in front of the Japanese
screen, which she could not therefore see.

'Here, Fanny--what's all this about?' Charles asked.

It was he at whom she looked when she went on:

'I won't keep you very long. But this is the first night we've
all been together for weeks. There's something I want to
say.'

She paused. Nicholas, looking at her with an amused friendly
smile, thought: 'Whatever has the old girl got in her head
now?'

Then she made her plunge.

'It's this. Nicholas' (she looked directly at him), 'isn't it
true that you mean to settle down with us now, to live with us
altogether? You haven't told me although I think you might
have done. Charles--'

Charles came forward. 'Look here, Fan, what the devil's the
matter with you? This isn't something for all of us. It's got
nothing to do--'

'I think it has,' she said quickly. 'With all of us. I think
we all ought to hear what Nicholas is going to do.'

Nicholas jingled his coins in his pocket.

'My dear Fanny, I think Charles is right. I don't see what my
staying here has to do with the family. I don't imagine they'll
any of them object if I do stay.'

'No,' said Fanny. 'But I want you to tell us all--just what
you mean to do.'

He gave her a sharp look. She remembered how, in the long ago
past, he had shot those glances at someone who might, he fancied,
be in his way.

'If that's all,' he went on, 'it's soon said. I'm sorry I
didn't mention it to you, Fan. I thought it mainly Charles's
business.' He looked round upon them all with exceeding
friendliness. 'The fact simply is--although it embarrasses me a
bit to make a public declaration of it--that Lizzie and I have
been so happy here, you've all made us both so comfortable, that
the other day I suggested to Charles that the arrangement should
be permanent. I've got a bit of a job now in London and it suits
me to stay here. I'd rather be in this house than anywhere else.
Of course I'll pay my shot in the upkeep and all of that. I hope
you none of you mind--'

And Charles said: 'And that's that. I don't know what Fanny's
notion was in making this into a kind of public meeting. But as
we are all here I may as well say that Nicholas and Lizzie
have been grand additions to the family. And now that the poor
Old Lady has gone there's lots of room. Stay as long as ever you
like, Nick, old boy, and welcome. And now--what about a
drink?'

He moved towards the tray where were the whisky, the siphons,
Grace's milk and the jug of barley water.

'And now,' said Fanny, 'I'll tell you why I wanted you all to
be here.'

Charles stopped, turned and looked at her.

'It's more important than you imagine--at least for myself.
It's something you all must decide. It's just this: if Nicholas
stays, I go.'

The first remark was a horrified 'My God!' from Charles.

Then Nicholas did his turn.

'If Fanny feels like that,' he said, 'the matter's settled.'
He moved towards the door. Charles caught his arm.

'By heaven, you don't!' he cried. 'Fanny, are you mad? What
craziness--' He stopped, collecting his words. 'Do you know what
you've done, insulting a guest in our house, your own brother
too? You're ill. You've been upset for months.' He put his hand
on Nicholas' shoulder. 'I apologize, Nick--and so shall Fanny
when she comes to her senses. Meanwhile the sooner we all clear
out--'

But Fanny went on:

'I know that it seems very rude. But I can't stop to think
whether I'm rude or not. Besides, we're only the family, aren't
we? There are no outsiders here. It's no use blustering, Charles.
I don't see why anyone should get excited. It's simply as I said.
If Nicholas stays, I go--and I want you all to decide which it
shall be.'

Nicholas came over to her.

'Now, Fanny,' he said, 'I'm sure you're right. I'm not angry
and nobody else is. Only it's pretty serious for me--that you
should feel so badly about me, I mean. What have I done? I think
it's fair we should all know.'

He was thinking: 'This is the greatest surprise of my whole
life. I never dreamt she had it in her.' And quietly, realizing
at once that their whole past life together was involved in this,
he settled down to fight her.

She looked up at him.

'There's no need to make this personal. Much better for all of
us that we shouldn't. When you first came here a year ago I was
delighted to see you. I didn't know, of course, that you were
going to stay so long and I had forgotten, in the ten years, how
much we'd always disliked one another--'

'My dear Fanny--'

'Oh yes. You know it as well as I. But this isn't to be
personal. I don't want to discuss or account for anything. Since
you have been here I have been increasingly miserable, and now it
has reached a point when we can't be in the same house together
any longer. So long as I thought that you were only on a visit I
could wait, but when I knew that you meant to stay altogether I
thought what it would be best to do. I could have gone away
without saying anything, but that would have been cowardly. I
could have discussed it with Charles. He would have thought me
simply ill or mad or something because I couldn't have given him
my real reasons. I could have asked you to go. Well, I did ask
you. You laughed at me.

'But there are other reasons for making it a family
discussion. During your year here you have, as I think,
influenced all of us and all of us badly. Matthew and Grace and I
know you better than the others do. It's a matter for all of us,
not only for Charles and yourself, as to whether you are going to
live here or not.'

Romney interrupted: 'All right, mother, if this is to
be a family discussion, then we'll say what we think. And what
I think, Uncle Nicholas, is that this house has been a
different place since you came--twice as jolly, twice as
lively--'

'All right. Leave me out of it. I've had my own troubles that
have nothing to do with Uncle Nicholas. I say that he's shaken us
all up and a damn good thing too. We needed it.'

Then Grace surprised everyone by speaking. She looked up, gave
a frightened glance at Nicholas, then said:

'But of course, Fanny, you're not going--not even on a visit.
We missed you terribly when you went on that cruise. I know
Charles did--and all of us.'

That made Charles burst out:

'Good Lord, this is all absurd! Of course Fanny isn't
going, nor Nicholas either. And it's damned bad taste to discuss
it, all of us like this. It makes me as shy as anything. What
you want, Fan, is a good night's rest. Come on. Let's have
a drink and stop this nonsense.'

Fanny spoke, and somehow, whether by the quiet determination
of her position, sitting back in her chair, not moving, or by
some inflection in her voice, it came to them all that this was
serious, that it really was about something and that they
had never in all their lives seen Fanny like this before.

'I'm sure,' she said, 'it's very rude to discuss Nicholas in
front of himself; I'm equally sure that he likes it very much. Do
you remember, Nicholas, how once at a children's party at the
Dermotts' they were talking about two little girls, how pretty
they were and so on?--you broke in with "And what about me?" But
we're not discussing you, Nicholas. This ill-mannered
business needn't go on another five minutes. I simply want
everyone to say whether they'd rather have me or you in the
house. Because we can't stay in it together. No. Not
another twenty-four hours.'

Nicholas now showed his extraordinary charm. It was as though
he wanted them all to understand that, beneath his badinage and
gaiety, he was a very genuine person, a rather wistful and lonely
person if all the truth were known.

'Look here, all of you. Never mind about my being embarrassed.
I'm used to it. Only--I must confess--this has been a tremendous
surprise to me, simply taken my breath away. If Fanny feels like
this, Lizzie and I have got to go--that's all there is to
it--'

'By God, you don't!' Charles broke in.

'Oh yes, Charles. Of course we have. We're quite used to
moving on. I don't think that Fanny is quite fair to me in one
thing though. When Lizzie and I came here first we didn't
mean to stay--really we didn't. We weren't sure even that
you'd want us at all after I'd behaved so badly in being silent
so long. But you were all so good to us, so awfully kind to us,
that we stayed on and on. And then I found some work to do. And
then Charles seemed to like the idea of our staying--so there you
are! Honestly I hadn't any notion that Fanny felt like this. And
that's why'--he turned directly to Fanny--'I think you owe it to
me to give some reasons for feeling as you do.'

She knew that if, at that moment, she had turned to Charles
and said: 'Which is it to be?' he would have roared at her: 'You
can damned well go on a visit somewhere! I'll never forgive you
for this scene, this bad taste, this abominable rudeness to a
guest of mine.' She could see quite clearly that that was what he
was feeling. Nevertheless she had now a new kind of strength; she
was afraid of no one, not even of Nicholas.

'It's like this,' she said, leaning forward a little. 'In the
first place, Nicholas, it isn't true that you meant to stay only
for a day or two. You meant to stay as long as you could. It
isn't true that you didn't know what you were doing. You've
always known exactly what you were doing. We've talked about this
before so that you can't pretend that you don't know what I
think. I want you to go simply because I want us all to stay
together. When you came we were very happy, we believed in one
another, we trusted one another. Now we don't any more. I myself
have been more unhappy in the last six months than in all the
rest of my life. That is partly my own fault. But not entirely.
We are all unhappy here even though we mayn't like to admit it.
And that's because you've done your best, Nicholas, to take away
everything that made us happy. You think that family life and
old-fashioned ideas like fidelity and religion are absurd now.
The world has grown out of them. You've laughed at us for still
believing in them. That's why I want you to go--or, if you don't
go, why I must.'

Nicholas laughed, gently and with great kindliness.

'You make me out a perfect villain, Fan. This is like a
Salvation Army meeting. I don't laugh at your ideas. I
think they're fine. I can't tell you what it's been to me after
wandering about the world as I've done to settle down with people
who believe in the things you do. It's made a new man of me.'

And that was his first mistake. Romney, Nell, and even Charles
had heard him express such very different sentiments! He
didn't admire fidelity and old-fashioned beliefs. Hadn't
he told Romney that he was a rascal and gloried in it? Hadn't he
advised Charles to wake up and see the world as it now was?
Hadn't he chaffed Charles about this very old-fashionedness of
Fanny's?

His second mistake was that he said to Charles:

'Come on, Charles. Stand up for me a bit. You know that
I'm not as bad as Fanny paints me.'

They all knew that in fact it was between Charles and Fanny
and Nicholas. The others didn't count in the real issue, which
was also something deeper and more general than even Nicholas and
Fanny.

Charles himself was in a fine confusion. The public drama of
the thing disgusted him. He was really ashamed of Fanny.
Before Nicholas spoke he had been ready, as she knew, to cry out:
'All right, Fanny--go if you want to! Stay with your old Janet
for a week or two and see how you like it!' For, of course, she
wouldn't go for long. A week would be all she could stand,
and it might do her all the good in the world. She would begin to
realize then how much they all meant to her, that she couldn't
play tricks with them as she had been doing lately, order people
out of the house as though she were mistress of it.

But, looking at her out of the corner of his eye, he seemed to
see a new Fanny. Absurd and unreal though this scene was, it
meant something. It was true that they had none of
them been happy. It was true that Nicholas had some damned
odd ideas. And then when Nicholas spoke, appealing to him, he
remembered a number of things--the money that he had borrowed (if
he was in a job now why hadn't he attempted to repay any of it?),
some of the things that he had said and the stories that he had
told.

So that when Fanny made, at last, her real challenge--the
challenge, if he had known it, all their lives depended on--he
was altogether of two minds. On the one hand to teach Fanny a
lesson for forcing this scene on him, for behaving so badly to
him during these last weeks, for, in general, being so unlike the
Fanny whom he loved; and, on the other hand, to show Nicholas
that he wasn't master here either (and maybe, after all,
it wouldn't be altogether a good thing if Nicholas lived here for
always).

Fanny got up from her chair.

'We aren't going to discuss it any more,' she said. 'I'm going
to-morrow morning. It's time I led my own life for a bit. I know
what you've been thinking of me for years back. Dear old Fanny
who doesn't know Epstein from Einstein, who loses her temper at
cards, who may make us ashamed at any moment by the silly things
she says--and the rest of it. Why should a woman expect, when
she's middle-aged, to hold her family any more? She's done her
job. There's no reason for them to care for her any longer if
they don't care for her. The only way I could hold you is
because you love me. Why should you love me if I'm not the sort
of person you can love? I'm sure it's very embarrassing
for you all to talk in this way, but once in forty years it's not
a bad thing for us to say what we think. Just about this time
last year I told a woman in a shop that we were the most united
family in existence. I see how silly I was. Nicholas is right, I
expect, when he says that we spend all our time shamming. We're
not shamming to-night.' She went on, standing in the middle of
them: 'You know, I owe something to myself too. I've tried to be
a fine mother and a good wife--just as though I were one of those
plain, good family women in one of the American films. I give it
up. Nicholas says no one needs fine mothers and good wives any
more. I expect he's right. I'm going to be something on my own
now--study myself a bit. You can all pay me visits sometimes and
see how I'm getting on.'

She walked to the door. Everything depended on Charles. Even
as her hand was on the door-knob he was still of two minds. Let
her go! She'd come back running! What right had she to order
Nicholas out of the house just because she didn't like him? But
would she come back? What would he do without her? What would
this house . . .?

His whole life long with Fanny drove him forward. He put his
hand on her arm as, only twenty minutes before, he had done to
Nicholas.

'Don't be an ass, Fan. Of course you can't go. We wouldn't
know what to do without you. . . .' He held her with his hand.
They all waited in extreme embarrassment. Romney lit a
cigarette.

Then Charles said: 'I'm awfully sorry, Nicholas, old man, but
if Fanny feels like this . . . perhaps it would be better. . . .
And now have a drink, everybody. What's yours, Matthew? Have a
drink, Nick. . . .'

All she knew was that she was dreadfully tired--and, after
that, that she never wanted to see any of them again.

She wanted just then to leave them, whether Nicholas went or
didn't go. She sat down just where she happened to be. It was the
sofa and she was surprised to find that Nell had taken her
hand.

But she did murmur: 'I'm sure we're all so very tired.
Hasn't this gone on long enough?'

'Only five minutes more, my dear,' said Nicholas, holding his
glass of whisky up against the light and looking at it. 'I want
to tell you all something before I go. To-morrow morning I depart
and, after what I'm going to say, you won't want, any of you, to
say good-bye to me.'

Charles, very uncomfortable, broke in:

'I say, old chap, don't think because of what I said--what I
mean is, that after a bit you'll come and stay again. Fanny
didn't mean--'

'Oh yes, she did,' said Nicholas. 'She meant every word of it.
She's wanted to see the last of me for months. So have Grace and
Matthew. Only I didn't think they'd have the pluck to say so. I
banked on that. I never was more surprised in my life than I was
at Fanny's outburst. Only an hour ago I thought I was nicely
settled here. Of course I knew what my own family thought of me,
but I argued that they'd do anything for a quiet life. I really
didn't know you had it in you, Fanny, my dear.'

She looked at him and realised how greatly he was enjoying
this. It had always been the same. If he couldn't have one thing
he'd have another. If he couldn't be the centre of the stage,
whether seen or unseen, one way, then he'd be it another. Vanity
and selfishness, she thought, and (to give him his due) a sense
of humour.

'Now listen, all of you,' he said. 'This is my last will and
testament. Once more I make my bow, only this time, as it's all
among the family, I can speak the truth.

'I must thank you for a very pleasant year here. Often you've
bored me--oftener you've amused me. I stayed--and I wanted to go
on staying--for two reasons. One because I thought this a nice
place to settle into, and the other, quite altruistic, because I
felt that I was good for all of you.'

Matthew murmured something.

'Yes, even for you, Matthew. You don't know it, but you are,
all of you, as remote from real life as the Hebridean cuckoo. I
don't mean that insultingly. I'm not being vindictive because
you're turning me out. I've no malice in my nature although I
would like to do you a bad turn before I go, Matthew, if I
could.'

Charles, who saw Nicholas growing into a different man before
his eyes, said:

'I say, Nicholas, hold on.'

'No,' said Nicholas. 'I don't mean to hold on or hold off. If
Fanny hadn't arranged this little dramatic scene you wouldn't
have found me so honest, but as it is--as I'm going anyway--I may
as well let you have the truth.

'I came here on a visit--a sort of rest-house until times were
easier. And then I found you very amusing. I found you loaded up
with a lot of old-fashioned ideas dating from the Ark: Matthew's
religion, Fanny's domesticity, Grace's--shall I tell them what
your amusement was, Grace dear?'

'All right, I won't tell them. Let me explain. I loved getting
you all to do as I wished. It was the greatest fun. And then I
was spoiling the Egyptians--a thing I've always loved doing. What
do I owe you, Charles? Never mind, you'll never see any of
it--'

'If you think--' said Charles indignantly.

'Oh no, I don't. You're a generous fellow--as weak as butter.
You're all weak and you're a lot of lambs complacently living in
a world of lions and tigers. When I've finished you'll think me a
very wicked man, I don't doubt. But I'm not--no wickeder than the
next man--only more honest. I hate humbugs, and you're all the
nicest people in the world but damnable humbugs.'

'What's the use of all this?' said Charles. 'You aren't making
things any better, Nicholas, you know.'

'Oh yes, I am,' said Nicholas, 'much better. And I'm enjoying
myself. You can't be so unfair as to deny me these last words,
positively the very last you'll ever hear from me. What was I
saying? Oh yes, the world has changed, but you none of you know
it. God is as dead as Queen Anne for one thing--morality is a
matter only of social convenience for another. But I'm not going
to preach. I soon found that you were all up to your own little
games like every other family I've ever seen. So I used you,
loving you all very much, of course. For instance, I took one or
two things that were just as much mine as yours really. A picture
or two, and the gold snuff-box. Do you know what I sold it
for?'

'You sold it?' Romney cried.

'Indeed I did. And for two hundred pounds.'

'Two hundred pounds!' Grace gasped.

'Yes. You didn't think it was worth so much, did you? Well,
nor did I. But it was. And you'll never see either the money or
the snuff-box again.'

'As a matter of fact,' said Fanny, 'I knew you'd sold it. I
saw it in a shop-window two days ago and went in and enquired
about it.'

'Well, did you really?' said Nicholas. 'And didn't say
anything about it just now. Upon my word, I admire you for that,
Fanny.' He looked as though he were going to pat her on the
shoulder, but he went on. 'And that letter, Charles--'

Charles started, turning to Fanny.

'Oh, it's all right. I'm not going to tell anyone about it.
But it was I who put it in Fanny's room. I found it in an old
dressing-gown.'

'You blackguard!' Charles cried. 'If I'd known it was
you--'

'Yes, but you didn't. You never dreamt of it. Now you'll never
forgive me, but it doesn't matter because you'll never see me any
more, dear Charles. I did it because I thought it time you and
Fanny were up against something that really mattered. After years
of marriage things get sleepy, don't they? And then it amused me,
of course, to see what you would do. And then I was irritated
with Fanny--I wanted to teach her a lesson. I've taught you all a
lesson if it comes to that. Life's real, you know, full of rogues
and sudden death and cancer and murder. Not at all the pretty
sentimental thing you fancy it is. And as to your God, Matthew,
He's been a pretty good failure in this case, hasn't He?'

'It isn't God that's failed but myself,' said Matthew
indignantly. 'I got to hate you so these last months that He was
removed from me.' He went on: 'I'd only say this, Nicholas. By
your own account, from what you've told us now, you're a pretty
good scoundrel. But don't think that God doesn't exist. Your
being a scoundrel isn't important nor my weakness. It goes much
deeper than what we are.'

'Well, have it as you like,' said Nicholas impatiently. 'I've
finished. Only remember I've done you a good turn. You'll all of
you go about the world now with your eyes a bit more open.'

He smiled on them all, finished his whisky, went to the
door.

'Good-bye. Good-bye. Lizzie and I will go to a hotel in the
morning and we don't want to be seen off.'

He went to his room, greatly pleased with himself, very
conscious of the way in which he had held them all spellbound.
But in his room, the door closed behind him, the
atmosphere changed. He looked about him at the familiar
things.

After all, what a bore! Such a little time ago to dinner when
he had seemed so securely settled, so happily placed! But he was
well accustomed to these changes. He remembered at Rome, in the
Aldebrondi villa, how, after dinner, there had been a scene very
like this--only of course more temperamental and Laura had thrown
the candlesticks at him. . . .

He must tell Lizzie. He went up into her room and woke her up.
She roused herself from her deep sleep as quietly as though,
through the evening, she had been expecting him.

He sat on the bed, put his arm around her, drew her towards
him. The only creature in the world whom he loved!

'Lizzie darling--I'm sorry to have woken you. But I had to
tell you. We're leaving to-morrow morning.'

'Leaving here?'

'Yes, dear--there's been a row.'

'Oh dear--another?'

'What do you mean--another?' he said crossly. Then he kissed
her, held her close to him, stroking her dark hair.

'Your Aunt Fanny doesn't like us. She says we've got to
go.'

He was aware that her body trembled.

'Where do we go this time?' she asked.

'Oh, to a hotel for a day or two. Then there's a nice place in
the country--some new friends I've made.'

As she said nothing (she had always before played up to his
plans whatever they might be): 'You'll like it awfully there,
dear. They're very nice people. It will be much better
than here. After all it was beginning to be boring here.
Wasn't it?'

She didn't respond to him at all.

'I don't know. I have been happy here.'

'Oh, darling, you couldn't be. Although they are my relations
they are so stupid!'

'What did Aunt Fanny say? Did she say that she hated us?'

'Oh, not that of course. English people aren't like that. They
may hate you ever so much but they don't say so.'

'Did she say that she wanted me to go?'

'No, she never mentioned you. But of course if I go you
do.'

He thought that she was going to cry. He had never in his life
known her do so. She did not now. She gave a deep sigh. Then she
said:

'Can I say good-bye to Edward in the morning?'

'Of course, dear, if you catch him before he goes to
school.'

Very quietly she drew away and lay down. She turned on her
side. He waited. No word came from her.

A fear, as acute as any he had ever known, attacked him.

'Darling--you aren't angry with me? It wasn't my fault. Kiss
me.'

She turned her head and allowed him to kiss her. Then she
turned again away.

He waited. There was no sound. He went back into his room. Had
they after all won the only victory over him that really
mattered? With their damned hypocrisy and soft ways had they
taken Lizzie away from him?

He hesitated. Should he go back to her and make her
show her love for him?

He had never felt quite so lonely before.

In their room, Charles, half undressed, burst out to
Fanny:

'But I can't understand! I never was so taken in by
anyone in my life! And he seemed to glory in it! Putting that
letter--'

She came to him, kissed him, sat beside him on the bed, her
arm about him.

She clung to him like a child, holding his hand as though she
were terrified that it would disappear.

'It doesn't matter. Nicholas isn't our sort anyway. It will
always be a battle between our sort and his--but it
doesn't matter. Love me. Charles, love me as though you
had met me for the first time yesterday.'

Later, in his arms, she murmured, just before she went to
sleep:

'I'm sure it will be fine to-morrow.'

And one more.

Matthew Coventry stood, his head bent, in his room and in a
silence more profound, it seemed to him, than any that he had
ever known, heard the tap of the hesitating branches against the
window-pane.

He had not turned on the electric light but lit two candles on
his table, and in their light that wavered with the breeze from
the just-open window, the 'Virgin of the Rocks' came to life,
moving like green water against the shore. He raised his head and
looked at it. He looked, as he so often did, to the left-hand
corner of the picture where a world of beautiful dream began in a
faint blue light--a world that had no limit, no sound, nothing
but peace.

He was bitterly humiliated. Fanny, whom he dearly loved but
had never thought greatly courageous, had done what he should
have done. It was he who should have liberated the family. Had he
not, in his heart, always prided himself that he was nearer to
God than they? Had not this fight with Nicholas been exactly
his fight, for it had been about the existence of God
although they themselves might not know it? But he knew
it. God knew it. At last, after years of preparation, God had
tested him and he had altogether failed. He had failed because he
had hated. His hatred of Nicholas had paralysed him, as hate
always paralyses right action.

He undressed. He came back from his bedroom and stood in the
little breeze, under the picture by the fluttering candles, a
white-skinned, flabby, bare, forked little creature who was worth
without God no more than the ashes that he would soon become.

He sank on his knees and, naked as he was, prayed. He
surrendered himself, as he had so often done before, to God. But
this time more truly. For he began now from the bottom. All the
climb had to be made again.

On his knees he remembered the words of Epictetus: 'But the
tyrant will bind thee. What will he bind?--the leg. He will rob
thee of what?--the head. What though can he neither bind nor take
away? The will. Thyself. That is why the ancients said--know
thyself.' Know thyself. Surrender thyself. Love thy fellow-men.
On these words the new world was to be built.

He rose, put on his pyjamas, brushed his teeth, went to the
window and thought of the Tree.

'I begin again and, all the world over, men are beginning
again.

'The door is open and God speaks. Depart. But whither? To
nothing terrible but rather to the place where you belong--to
everything that is friendly and akin--'

Submission to God's will to act as He orders. Love of men.
Companionship with all the world of nature. . . .

Nicholas came down to breakfast. Only Nell was present. He was
not at all embarrassed but helped himself generously to kidneys
and bacon. Nell gave him his coffee.

'I may as well have a good meal as it's my last in this
house,' he said. 'Nell, dear, you look blooming. Hector will be
delighted at your loveliness.'

Nell, leaning on her elbows, looked at him across the
breakfast table. He was extremely spruce and had a flower in his
button-hole, a flower that he had undoubtedly taken from the bowl
in the drawing-room.

'Uncle Nicholas, tell me,' she said, 'why did you burst out
with all that last night? Did you like us knowing how bad
you'd been?'

'I did it, my dear,' said Nicholas, 'because it amused
me.'

'Do you do everything because it amuses you?'

'Pretty well everything.'

Then she said: 'We're probably not such fools as you
think.'

'And I'm probably not so wicked as you think.'

'I'm sorry,' Nell said, 'Lizzie's going. She's a darling.'

But he didn't answer that. That was serious.

He kissed her good-bye. She was the only member of the family
whom he saw.

Oh yes, he saw Romney.

Romney ran down the stairs, shook him by the hand and said:
'Uncle Nicholas, you haven't taken the negress, have you?'

'No. But I wanted to,' said Nicholas.

'Sometime,' said Romney, 'when you're in town again, let me
know. We'll have lunch. There's a girl I'd like you to meet.'

A week later on a lovely spring morning, somewhere in
Herefordshire, the lady who had shopped at Fortnum's was
arranging the flowers.

The maid, Isabel, came and said: 'Someone on the telephone,
Madam.'

At the telephone the lady said (her daughter was teasing the
Pekinese close beside her), 'A call from London? . . . Yes . . .
Yes? . . . Who is that speaking? What? I can't quite hear. Oh!
Captain Coventry? Why, how delightful! I hoped that--Yes--I can
hear perfectly. Why, how are you? I'm splendid, thank you--yes,
splendid--what? A visit? Why, of course. How perfectly
splendid! . . . Oh, definitely! Quite delightful! Oh yes, and
bring your little girl! No, there's no one here except the
family. For as long as you like. Of course we shall be enchanted!
As long as you like! This afternoon? Why, certainly.
There's a very good train--three-thirteen from Paddington. We
shall be delighted. The car shall meet you. That's
perfectly splendid!'

Radiant, she turned to her little girl.

'What do you think? It's that charming Captain Coventry. He's
coming this evening. And he's bringing his little girl, so you'll
have a companion. . . . I am glad! I do hope he stays
quite a while. . . .'

The lovely spring sunshine flooded the street. Within the
station there was a warm radiance. Nicholas and Lizzie were in
plenty of time.

'I've taken first-class tickets, darling. So like me when I
haven't a bean. Still, we won't be poor for long. Have you got
the papers you want?'

'Yes, thank you,' said Lizzie.

She was staring down the platform. She had written to Edward
giving him this new address, telling him the train by which they
were going. Of course he could not be here. It would be a
half-holiday but they would make him play one of those silly
games. Nevertheless she stared down the platform.

'That right, porter?' said Nicholas. 'Have we got
everything?'

'I think so, sir,' said the porter.

Nicholas considered him.

'You look very tired. Been up all night?'

'Well, sir--my wife's bad. 'Ad an operation last week--all her
inside taken out.'

'I say, that's bad,' said Nicholas. He took out his
pocket-book. Smiling, as one friend to another, he gave the man
ten shillings.